OMFG I used to work at Carlâs house which in now a museum in Falun, Sweden, and now his art is on my dash!Â
I could tell so many stories about this family, but to sum it up they lived the definition of what we would call a cottagecore life where both Carl and Karin worked as artists in their dream house that they designed and built together. It really was an artistâs home built with pure love, and also a big contrast to what a typical Swedish home looked like at the time. The late 1800s trend was to have a dark home with gothic vibes and brown and dark red colours. The Larssonâs home though is bright and colourful with big windows and homemade textiles sewn by Karin.
I also wanted to tell a bit about Brita, the cute little girl on her fatherâs shoulders in the original post. Here she is portraited in Brita, Cat and a Sandwich.Â
She was the fifth child of seven and felt like she didnât get enough attention from her dad as a middle child in a big family. To get more time with her dad she would ask him to paint only her as often as possible since then she could talk to him without any of her siblings annoying them. This is how she became the most painted of all the children with hundreds of portraits made with her as the model. She was 89 years old when she died in 1982 and loved to talk about her childhood and those many, many painting sessions with dad.
This is one of my favourite paintings by Carl Larsson, A Viking Raid in Dalarna. Here we have all the children in a boat during a cool summerâs eve (from left, Pontus, Brita, Lisbeth, Ulf, Kersti, EsbjĂśrn, Suzanne).
