Oskar Bergman - Baggensfjärden, Stockholm, 1922

OSKAR BERGMAN (1879–1963) Sweden

BAGGENSFJÄRDEN, STOCKHOLM, 1922

signed and dated lower right
pencil on paper
unframed 18 × 26.5 cm (7.1 × 10.4 in)
framed 23.5 × 32 cm (9.3 × 12.6 in)

Provenance:
The artist’s daughter Ingrid Bergman; 
Britt and Björn Gustavsson, Stockholm;
We acquired it 2025. 

Condition report:
The drawing is in very fine condition. The sheet appears well preserved, with no visible tears, losses, or significant discoloration. The surface retains a fresh and even tonality, and the graphite remains clear and stable. The work has recently been fitted with new museum glass providing 92 percent ultraviolet protection and an anti reflective surface. The frame is the original frame and shows only minor age consistent wear.

Essay:
This refined pencil drawing from 1922 depicts Baggensfjärden in winter, rendered with a quiet authority that is characteristic of Oskar Bergman’s mature landscape practice. The composition unfolds in measured horizontal bands, leading the eye from the snow covered foreground across a surface of thin ice toward distant wooded heights. The restrained tonal scale and the subtle modulation of light create an atmosphere of suspended stillness that is both observed and carefully constructed.

The foreground and the low islands appear blanketed in snow. Bergman conveys this through delicate, even passages of graphite that preserve the brightness of the paper while introducing gentle shadows to suggest uneven ground beneath the frozen surface. The contours are softened rather than sharply defined, allowing the snow to read as a continuous mass shaped by wind and cold. Trees rise from this whitened terrain, their dark silhouettes providing measured vertical accents against the pale expanse.The water appear as covered by field of thin ice. In several passages, particularly toward the middle and background, reflections from the wooded shores and rocky outcrops remain visible beneath or upon the ice. 

Baggensfjärden, situated between Saltsjöbaden and the inner archipelago, has long offered artists a motif where openness and enclosure coexist. In winter the fjärd acquires a particular clarity. The sky remains expansive and restrained. Rather than filling the upper register with emphatic cloud formations, Bergman allows the atmosphere to remain pale and weightless. A subtle gradation toward the upper edge suggests both spatial recession and the cool density of winter air. This restraint enhances the contemplative quality of the drawing. Nothing in the scene disturbs the equilibrium.

Within Bergman’s oeuvre, landscapes such as this demonstrate his commitment to structural coherence and tonal harmony. Trained within the Swedish academic tradition yet responsive to broader European developments, he cultivated a language grounded in disciplined drawing. Even in graphite, his sense of pictorial architecture is evident. The scene is carefully organized through horizontal divisions of snow, ice, and forest, yet the construction never feels rigid. Instead, the image breathes with a natural rhythm derived from observation.

The year 1922 places the work in a period when Bergman had fully consolidated his artistic identity. By this time he was recognised for interiors and landscapes marked by sobriety and balance. In Baggensfjärden this restraint becomes especially effective. The winter setting reduces visual distraction and directs attention to nuance, to the fine transitions that define snow covered ground, frozen water, and the reflected darkness of trees and rock.