Gustaf Theodor Wallén - Afternoon Mood

Gustaf Theodor Wallén (1860–1948) Swedish 

Eftermiddagsstämning (Afternoon Mood) c. 1886-1887

oil on canvas
signed G.T.Wallén
unframed 100 x 150 cm (39 ⅜ x 59 in)
framed 130 x 180 cm (51 ⅛ x 70 ⅞ in)

Provenance:
By descent within the family until 2025.

Literature:
Urban Windahl: Gustaf Theodor Wallén, Stiftelsen Walléngården, 1992, cf. similar motif Afternoon Mood, Vitemölla, Skåne, 1886–87, illustrated p. 21.

ESSAY:

Early Training and Artistic Development

Gustaf Theodor Wallén was part of a generation of Swedish artists who came of age in the late 19th century amid a shift toward realism and plein-air painting. Born in Stockholm, he first trained in crafts and drawing before enrolling at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1879. At the Academy’s antique school he studied alongside noted peers such as Bruno Liljefors, Anders Zorn, Carin Bergöö (later Larsson), and Jenny Nyström. Under the academic tutelage of Professor Georg von Rosen, Wallén developed strong foundational skills in drawing and composition. His early works during the 1880s still reflect academic genre themes and careful technique, but he, like many of his contemporaries, soon became captivated by painting directly from nature. This period in Scandinavian art – often termed the Modern Breakthrough – saw young artists turn from idealized subjects to scenes of everyday life and truthful depictions of nature. Wallén’s formative years thus positioned him at the crossroads of academic tradition and emerging plein-air naturalism, preparing him for the stylistic evolution to come.

“Afternoon Mood” at Vitemölla – Coastal Realism and Nordic Light

Wallén’s breakthrough came with a coastal scene from southern Sweden that marries academic skill with fresh naturalism. Around 1886–87 he painted Eftermiddagsstämning, Vitemölle, Skåne (“Afternoon Mood, Vitemölla, Skåne”), also known as I väntan på far (“Waiting for Father”). The motif was drawn from the fishing village of Vitemölla on Skåne’s Österlen coast. In the composition, a solitary fisherman's boy stands on the sun-warmed shore in the late day, gazing intently toward the horizon. The atmosphere is tranquil; a few fishing boats have been pulled onto the sand and nets hang to dry, suggesting the day’s work is done. Wallén suffuses the scene in a golden, gentle light – “a warm afternoon light” with “a Skagen-like shimmer” settled over the calm sea. This luminous treatment of sky and water is reminiscent of the famed Skagen painters just across the strait in Denmark, who were celebrated for capturing the translucent coastal light that merges sea and sky. Indeed, contemporaries such as P.S. Krøyer in Skagen were similarly enchanted by the unique Nordic light and painted en plein air to record its effects, producing realist portrayals of intense light over sand and sea. Like those artists, Wallén conveys a precise time of day and mood through light: here the soft glow of afternoon evokes a peaceful expectancy as the boy awaits his father’s return.

Despite these parallels, Wallén’s Afternoon Mood also reflects his own artistic sensibility. In contrast to some Skagen works that bustle with communal life or dramatic action, Wallén’s scene is quietly contemplative. The child’s lone figure and the expansive horizon create an almost poetic silence, differing from the convivial social scenes Krøyer often painted or the heroic rescue dramas of Michael Ancher. Yet the shared spirit is evident – a commitment to realist open-air painting and the study of natural light, hallmarks of the Scandinavian plein-air movement. Wallén’s careful draftsmanship (honed at the Academy) combines with an atmospheric sensitivity to result in a painting both realistic and emotive. Titled “Afternoon Mood” for exhibition, the composition was awarded the Royal Medal by the Royal Swedish Academy in 1887. This high honor not only marked Wallén’s emergence among Sweden’s notable painters, but also qualified him for a prestigious state travel scholarship. Wallén is known to have painted several versions of this motif, and while it is difficult to say with certainty which version was exhibited and received the medal, the present work clearly belongs to that important group. In essence, Afternoon Mood at Vitemölla stands as an early masterpiece of Wallén’s, capturing the Nordic coastal light with a skill that aligns him with his Danish Skagen counterparts while maintaining a distinctively Swedish narrative tenderness.

Paris, Travel, and Evolving Style

Winning the 1887 Royal Medal proved transformative for Wallén’s career. Along with the honor came a three-year state stipend to study abroad – a generous grant that secured his livelihood and allowed him to engage directly with Europe’s art centers. In 1888 he departed for Paris, then the mecca of avant-garde art. There he briefly trained under the academic master William Bouguereau at the Académie Julian and later at the more progressive Académie Colarossi. Immersed in Paris’s lively art scene, Wallén exhibited at the Salon and absorbed contemporary currents ranging from Academic classicism to Impressionism. He often sketched along the quays of the Seine amid the urban bustle, though true plein air painting proved challenging in the city’s chaos. Seeking subjects more akin to his coastal Swedish roots, Wallén spent summers in the artists’ colony at Concarneau in Brittany (1889) and later on the island of Capri in Italy. In Brittany’s Finistère region – much like Skagen – he found his beloved motifs of boats, harbors and seaside life; paintings from these years are dominated by marine and coastal subjects. Works such as “Growing Pumpkins in Brittany” indicate his interest in rural coastal communities, paralleling the naturalist trends of the time. On Capri and during travels through Italy and Spain, Wallén also encountered Mediterranean light and color, further enriching his palette and subject matter.

Wallén’s stylistic evolution during this period is marked by a blend of his solid academic technique with the looser brushwork and truthful lighting of plein-air realism. A major achievement of these travels was his canvas I sorgehuset(“In the House of Mourning”), painted 1889–90, which depicted a moving genre scene likely inspired by his observations abroad. Shown at the Paris Salon of 1892, I sorgehuset earned Wallén a Salon medal and was even purchased by the French state – an exceptional honor for a Swedish artist of the day. This international recognition underscored how far Wallén’s art had come: from Stockholm’s academic halls to standing alongside Europe’s finest. Critics praised the work’s emotive realism, evidence that Wallén had successfully integrated modern naturalist sensibilities into his painting. By the early 1890s, he was exhibiting both in France and back home, and from 1894 he became a regular exhibitor with the progressive Swedish Artists’ Association (Konstnärsförbundet). In these mature years, Wallén’s oeuvre ranged from landscapes and seascapes to intimate portraits and genre scenes, in oil and watercolor, and even sculptures – reflecting a versatile artistic curiosity.

Wallén and the Skagen Painters: Similarities and Differences

Wallén’s art occupies a fascinating place within the broader Nordic artistic milieu of the late 19th century. Like his Danish and Norwegian contemporaries in the Skagen artists’ colony, he was drawn to authentic depictions of coastal life and the fleeting effects of light. The Skagen painters – P.S. Krøyer, Anna and Michael Ancher, Oscar Björck (a fellow Swede), among others – gathered in the 1880s to paint the fishermen, beaches and distinctive “intense light on the narrow sand spit” at Denmark’s northern tip. They practiced realist plein air painting, sitting in the dunes to capture sunsets, shimmering surf, and the everyday labor of the local folk. Wallén’s Afternoon Mood at Vitemölla clearly springs from the same impulse to portray a humble fishing community with honesty and atmosphere. The “Skagen-like shimmer” noted in his Vitemölla scene was no coincidence – artists across Scandinavia were enthralled by the unique quality of Nordic coastal light, whether on Skagen’s shores or Sweden’s Skåne coast. In both Skagen and Vitemölla, the sea’s reflective expanse and low northern sun produced a silvery luminosity that artists endeavored to record on canvas. Wallén’s treatment of hazy sunshine over calm waters, and his focus on a local child by the shore, echo the Skagen school’s mix of naturalism and poetic mood.

There are, however, illuminating differences in emphasis. Peder Severin Krøyer, for instance, became famous for his depictions of the “blue hour” twilight on Skagen’s beach – works like Summer Evening at Skagen – using loose brushstrokes and an almost impressionistic touch to capture that evanescent blue light. Wallén’s light in Afternoon Moodis the warmer glow of late afternoon, painted with a somewhat tighter, more blended technique befitting his academic background. Where Krøyer and others often populated their scenes with multiple figures – fishermen gathering nets, artists at dinner, or elegant friends strolling by the sea – Wallén’s composition centers on a single small figure, creating an intimate narrative of anticipation. This restraint gives Wallén’s work a contemplative solitude, closer in spirit to certain quiet Skagen scenes (such as Anna Ancher’s solitary interiors or Viggo Johansen’s hushed family moments) than to the group tableaux of Krøyer. In subject matter, Wallén was painting his own Swedish coast and its people, but he shared the Skagen artists’ ethnographic respect for local traditions and their modern, unidealized view of rural working folk. Technically, both Wallén and the Skagen painters painted from life in the open air, often starting studies on the spot – Krøyer’s canvases famously contained grains of sand from painting on the beach – but Wallén, ever the meticulous draftsman, would ensure a polished finish suitable for Salon and Academy exhibitions. In sum, Wallén can be seen as part of this broader Scandinavian movement that wedded French-influenced plein-air realism to Nordic subjects. His work stands alongside the Skagen painters’ as a regional variant: equally enthralled by light and life by the sea, yet filtered through his own Swedish lens and personal temperament.

Later Career and Legacy in the Nordic Context

By the turn of the 20th century, Wallén had established himself as a respected artist and even expanded into printmaking and sculpture. Around 1900 he chose to settle in the village of Leksand in Dalarna, central Sweden – a region rich with folk culture and idyllic landscapes. There he joined a circle of artists led by Gustaf Ankarcrona, becoming part of a local artists’ colony that arose under the era’s burgeoning national romanticism. Alongside painters like Emerik Stenberg, Anselm Schultzberg and others, Wallén turned his attention to scenes of Swedish rural life, folk costumes, and historical nostalgia that the national romantic movement celebrated. His painting Kulla i Kackaluva (a Dalarna folk girl) from 1902 is one such example of integrating regional folk themes into fine art. This phase highlights Wallén’s adaptability – from coastal realism in the 1880s to patriotic regionalism in the early 1900s – and underscores his role in the broader Nordic art narrative, where many late-19th-century artists later embraced their national heritage in subject and style.

Notably, Wallén’s output slowed after about 1920. Ever the multifaceted craftsman, he devoted much of his energy to building his own residence and studio at Leksand (completed in 1917) in a traditional timber national-romantic style. He was also a generous mentor and patron of the arts in his community, eventually donating his home and a collection of his works to establish a folk high school for crafts and drawing in Leksand. Wallén remained somewhat reclusive and reportedly reluctant to sell his paintings during his life, which meant that his art was seldom seen on the open market for decades. It was only in December 1947 – at the age of 87 – that he held his first major solo exhibition, in Gothenburg, showcasing a lifetime of work to great acclaim. He passed away shortly thereafter in January 1948, just weeks after witnessing a late but enthusiastic recognition of his artistry.

Today, Gustaf Theodor Wallén is remembered as a talented yet understated figure of Nordic art. His paintings can be found in Swedish museums such as the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and the Dalarnas Museum, as well as in the collection of Wallénhallen in Leksand – a cultural center honoring his legacy. For contemporary viewers and collectors, Wallén’s work offers a richly informative window into the Nordic artistic milieu of the late 19th century. His early canvas of Vitemölla, with its golden light and quietly narrative realism, stands as a Swedish counterpart to the Skagen masterworks of the same era, equally worthy of appreciation. In Wallén’s oeuvre, one finds the confluence of academic skill, plein-air innovation, and deep regional affection – a combination that not only enriches any gallery presentation of his 1880s seaside scene, but also illuminates the broader story of Scandinavian art’s flourishing at the dawn of modernity.

Condition Report
Recently examined and treated by a professional art conservator in Stockholm, the painting has undergone careful restoration. The old, yellowed varnish was replaced with a fresh, clear layer, and a few discreet retouchings were made. The colors now appear vivid and luminous, restoring the work to its original brilliance. As is typical for paintings of this age, there are fine, stable craquelures. A few faint pressure marks from the stretcher are visible in the central area, though these are very minor. Overall, the work is in excellent condition. The original frame is included and retains a few small repairs.

Sources

• Urban Windahl: Gustaf Theodor Wallén – Skåne, Concarneau, Capri, Stockholm, Leksand, Stiftelsen Walléngården, 1993.

• Wallénhallen Foundation archives, Leksand.

• Auction catalogues, including Bukowskis, for biographical and artwork-specific details.

• Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen – materials on the Skagen painters and plein-air practice.

• Nationalmuseum, Stockholm – collection notes on Wallén’s works.

• General art historical context from Scandinavian art monographs and museum publications on Nordic light and late-19th-century plein-air movements.