Autumn

Helmer Osslund was a Swedish artist born in Tuna. His birth name was Aslund but switched to the more international sounding Osslund when at 20 years old he went to America to become an architect. Osslund attended the homecoming at the Technical School and the Artists' Association art school in Stockholm. In 1889 he was hired later as a decorator at the Gustavsberg porcelain factory but continued his artistic career after study trips to Paris and London and training at the Académie Corarossi with Paul Gauguin. Early he worked mainly in a realistic style but then moved onto a more decorative expressionistic style where color was streamlined in the overall plan. Osslund sometimes called "Painter of the North" and his motifs are a variety of northern administration characterized by colorful depictions of rivers, mountains and coniferous forest. This large painting Hösten (“Autumn”) was originally part of a suite of the four seasons that Osslund painted for the leather industry owner Emil A. Matton’s residence in Gävle in 1907. The house was demolished in 1979, but the paintings were rescued (the other three are privately owned). Behind the birches in the foreground lies a landscape with the still waters of a mountain lake. The reddish autumn colours are typical of Osslund’s paintings.