• Nils Forsberg
  • Swedish, 1842 - 1934
Nils Forsberg was born on 17 December 1842 in Riseberga, Skåne, and died in Helsingborg in 1934.

Forsberg grew up on a poor smallholding outside the village of Riseberga. When his parents wanted to apprentice him to a cobbler, he fled to Helsingborg where he took an apprenticeship with an artist. In 1861 he started studying at Slöjdföreningens skola in Göteborg.

Funding from a private benefactor allowed Forsberg to travel to Paris in 1867, staying there until 1902. As a student at Léon Bonnat’s school he became acquainted with Gustaf Cederström. Forsberg made a living as a professional painter, photographer and by copying famous paintings. He focused on painting with a narrative, with contemporaneous motifs and those from Swedish history.

Forsberg served as a medical soldier in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–1871. His experiences there gave him the material for his most famous work, En hjältes död (Death of a Hero), where a wounded soldier is dying in a temporary sick bed. Forsberg was a warded a gold medal at the Paris salon in 1888 for the painting. His painting Acrobat Family before the Circus Manager (1878, Gothenburg Museum of Art), had also brought him some success. At the World’s Fair in Paris in 1900, he showed the large work, Gustaf Adolf före slaget vid Lützen (Gustav Adolf before the battle of Lützen).

After returning to Sweden, Forsberg mostly painted portraits. He also produced the altarpiece in Kattarp Church.
Works of Art
Sketch to Acrobat Family before the Circus Manager
Grandfather hears Bad News from the War
Sitting Boy
Acrobat Family before the Circus Manager
Death of a Hero. Study.
Gustavus II Adolphus before the Battle of Lützen
Ishmael in the Desert, sketch
Circus Director (Study for "Acrobat Family")