Nils Dardel, “The Bar”, Oil on Canvas, 1920, Private Collection
Nils Dardel was a Swedish Post-Impressionist painter, who studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm between 1908-1910. After studying in Sweden he did as many of his contemporaries and traveled to Paris. There he took inspiration from the Fauvists with their pure palette, the Post-Impressionists, as well as Japanese woodcuts. Dardel also made a brief foray into Cubism, painting a few cityscapes in that style.
Dardel lived a nomadic life, traveling far and wide without ever really settling down. Many of his portraits are of people and places whom he met along his travels. He was known to be self-destructive. Not exceptionally appreciated in his lifetime, his breakthrough in Sweden came simultaneously to the breaking out of World War IIin Europe, at the time whenthe Liljevalchs Konsthall displayed a retrospective of Dardel’s life and works.
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