Gunnar Börjeson - Afsked (Farewell), 1905

Gunnar Börjeson (1877–1945) Sweden / Denmark

Afsked (Farewell), 1905

signed and dated G. Börjeson 1905 in the lower right composition
oil on canvas, four parts
three lower canvases 64 × 33 cm (25.2 × 13 in) each
upper canvas 33 × 109 cm (13 × 42.9 in)
framed 124 × 144 cm (48.8 × 56.7 in)
in the original jugend frame

The upper composition is titled Anna.

Exhibited:
An older exhibition label numbered “2” is preserved on the reverse. The exhibition has not yet been identified.

Condition Report:
Newly restored by Sonia Leon. In overall very good condition, with minor age related wear consistent with its age. Please contact the gallery for a detailed condition report.

Essay:
Painted in 1905, Afsked is an unusually ambitious and highly personal work by Gunnar Börjeson. Rather than presenting a single scene, the artist divides the composition into four separate canvases held together by the original jugend frame. The result is closer to a pictorial sequence than a conventional easel painting, allowing the viewer to experience the work as a meditation on encounter, separation and memory.

The three vertical compositions below appear to unfold as successive emotional states. A young figure carrying flowers introduces a sense of expectation and tenderness. Another scene suggests the moment of departure itself, while the darker passage that follows conveys solitude and emotional withdrawal. Above them, the broad horizontal composition, titled Anna, introduces a further lyrical element. The four scenes are not accompanied by an explanatory text, and their precise narrative remains open, but together they form a remarkably coherent emotional progression.

This ambiguity is one of the work’s greatest strengths. Börjeson provides enough detail to suggest a personal story while withholding the information required to resolve it completely. Who is Anna? Is the work autobiographical, literary, or imagined? The title Afsked, meaning Farewell, establishes separation as the central theme, but the individual relationships remain deliberately elusive.

The original frame plays an essential role in this reading. Its division into individual pictorial fields recalls the structure of an altarpiece or predella. In a religious context, such a format would traditionally organize separate episodes within a larger sacred narrative. Börjeson adopts a comparable structure for an intimate and secular subject. The monumental framing lends gravity to a story concerned not with historical events, but with private emotion.

The work was painted at a formative moment in Börjeson’s career. Born in Denmark in 1877, he was the son of the prominent Swedish sculptor John Börjeson, professor at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and one of the leading sculptors of his generation. Gunnar therefore grew up within an established artistic environment.

After studying at Caleb Althin’s painting school in Stockholm in 1897 and 1898, Börjeson entered the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, where he remained from 1898 until 1903. His studies culminated in the award of the Royal Medal in 1903, an important distinction for a young artist at the beginning of his professional career.

He travelled to Paris in 1904, and from 1905 received Academy support for further study in Germany, Italy and France. During these years he spent an extended period in and around Rome and also worked in Civita d’Antino, where he studied under the Danish painter Kristian Zahrtmann. The year in which Afsked was painted therefore stands precisely at the threshold between Börjeson’s formal Swedish education and the international study period that followed.

This context makes the painting especially interesting. Its carefully structured narrative still reflects the discipline of academic training, yet its subject is strikingly introspective. Rather than choosing portraiture, history painting or a conventional landscape, Börjeson created an ensemble devoted to psychological states. The emphasis lies on gesture, silence and the spaces between figures.

The work also demonstrates his early interest in figure painting, a field that remained important throughout his career. Börjeson later became known for portraits, including military subjects and children, as well as landscapes. His portrait of his father was exhibited in Stockholm and reflects the close artistic connection within the Börjeson family.

In 1914 he settled permanently in Denmark. His later career increasingly included Danish landscapes and portraits, but Afsked belongs to the earlier Swedish and continental phase, when the young painter was still developing the artistic language that would define his mature work.

More than a century after its creation, the precise story behind the farewell remains unknown. That uncertainty is not a weakness but part of the work’s fascination. Börjeson allows the viewer to enter the narrative without fully explaining it. The flowers, the departure, the solitude and violin player become fragments of a story whose emotional meaning is immediately understandable even when its biographical circumstances have been lost.

Afsked stands as one of Gunnar Börjeson’s most ambitious early works and an unusual example of Scandinavian narrative painting at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Sources:

• Svenska konstnärer. Biografisk handbok. Entry on Gunnar Börjeson.
• Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Artist documentation for Gunnar Börjeson.
• Nordisk familjebok. Biographical material concerning John and Gunnar Börjeson.
• Maribo Lokalhistoriske Arkiv. Biographical information concerning Gunnar Börjeson’s education, Royal Medal, European study journeys and years in Denmark.