• Ester Almqvist
  • Swedish, 1869 - 1934
Ester Almqvist came from a family of clergymen in Småland. Even though she lost her father at an early age, she had the opportunity to educate herself, under Carl Larsson at the Valand School of Fine Art in Gothenburg and under Bruno Liljefors and Richard Bergh at Konstnärsförbundets skola (the Artists’ Association School) in Stockholm. Almqvist’s early painting was influenced by National Romanticism. Her career was hampered by the fact that she lived at home, and was unable to travel, until her mother died in 1913, when she was released of her obligation. She became a modernist, with a freer idiom and heightened colours.

Almqvist was one of the first Swedish artists who depicted working people, such as fishermen in Blekinge, stevedores in Gothenburg and street-repairers in France.
Her body of work comprises oil paintings, watercolours, drawings in Indian ink and charcoal, as well as etchings. The Gothenburg Museum of Art Collections comprise five of her paintings.

Per Dahlström
Works of Art
Birch Grove after Sunset
Portrait
Autumn Ploughing in the Marshland
Potato Pickers
Gothenburg Harbour with Boats in the Ice