Richard Bergh

Home > People > Literature and the Arts > European Art, 1600 to the Present: Biographies

Bergh, Richard (b Stockholm, 28 Dec. 1858; d Saltsjö-Storängen, nr. Stockholm, 29 Jan. 1919). Swedish painter, writer, and art administrator, son of a landscape painter, Edvard Berghe (1828–80). From 1878 to 1881 he studied at the Academy in Stockholm, where his father was a professor, then spent the next three years in Paris. His work was strongly influenced by French open-air painting and Symbolism, but he made them the basis of a distinctive Swedish national romanticism, as in his most famous work, Nordic Summer Evening (1899–1900, Konstmuseum, Gothenburg). It shows a man and a woman on a veranda looking out over a lake in an atmosphere heavy with psychological tension. Bergh was also a fine portraitist, notably of his artist and intellectual friends. He took a keen interest in political and social issues and was a founding member (1885) of the Artists' Union, which revolted against the conservatism of the Stockholm Academy. In 1915 he was appointed director of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, which he reorganized into a modern, dynamic institution. Collections of his articles on art were published in 1908 (revised 1919) and (posthumously) in 1921.

Bergh, Richard (1858–1919). Swedish painter, writer, and art administrator, born in Stockholm, son of a landscape painter, Edvard Bergh (1828–80). From 1878 to 1881 he studied at the Academy in Stockholm, where his father was a professor, then spent the next three years in Paris. His work was strongly influenced by French open-air painting and Symbolism, but he made them the basis of a distinctive Swedish national romanticism, as in his most famous work, Nordic Summer Evening (Konstmuseum, Gothenburg, 1899–1900). It shows a man and a woman on a veranda looking out over a lake in an atmosphere heavy with psychological tension. Bergh was also a fine portraitist, notably of his artist and intellectual friends. He took a keen interest in political and social issues and was a founding member (1885) of the Artists' Union, which revolted against the conservatism of the Stockholm Academy. In 1915 he was appointed director of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, which he reorganized into a modern, dynamic institution. Collections of his articles on art were published in 1908 (revised 1919) and (posthumously) in 1921.