Owe Zerge - Blue and White Anemones

Owe Zerge (1894–1983) Sweden

Blåsippor och vitsippor (Blue and White Anemones)

signed lower left Owe Zerge
oil on panel
unframed 54 × 64.5 cm (21.3 × 25.4 in)
framed 70 × 80 cm (27.6 × 31.5 in)

Provenance:
Private collection, Sweden.

Condition Report:
The painting is in very good condition with a well preserved paint surface and clear, vibrant colours. Presented in a newly made gilded frame, included with the work.

Essay:
In this intimate woodland scene, Owe Zerge turns his attention away from the portraits for which he became particularly well known and instead focuses on one of the most familiar signs of the Scandinavian spring. A carpet of white anemones spreads across the forest floor beneath a large moss covered boulder, accompanied by several intensely blue flowers that appear to be blue anemones.

The contrast between the delicate flowers and the massive stone gives the composition much of its character. The white blossoms form an irregular band across the centre of the painting, their petals standing out sharply against last year's brown leaves and the deep greens of the surrounding vegetation.  Zerge's close viewpoint is particularly effective. There is no distant landscape and no sky. Instead, the viewer is brought directly down to the forest floor, as though encountering the flowers during a spring walk. 

Owe Zerge studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and subsequently developed a long career as a painter, becoming particularly admired for his portraits. His technical training is evident here in the careful observation of individual plants, but the painting never becomes botanical illustration. The flowers are described with sufficient precision to establish their character, while the surrounding leaves, stones and forest floor are handled with broader and increasingly painterly strokes.

The motif is deeply associated with the Swedish spring. Vitsippor and blåsippor appear during the brief period when light once again reaches the woodland floor before the trees develop their full summer foliage. Zerge captures precisely this sense of renewal. Against the subdued browns and greys left by winter, the flowers and newly emerging leaves appear exceptionally vivid. The result is a beautifully observed and unusually intimate work by Zerge. Rather than seeking grandeur, he finds his subject in a small fragment of nature and gives it presence through scale, colour and close observation.