Today’s art gif brings us a few canvases by Anders Montan. Born in 1845 in southern Sweden, he was trained at the Copenhagen Academy of Fine Arts and the Stockholm Academy of Fine Arts, moving to Dusseldorf and becoming a member of the artists’ association there in 1884. Montan tended to favor painted dark, moody, expressive interior settings punctuated by artfully located light sources. In search of his favorite subjects—working spaces such as factories, smithies and barns along with the people who worked within them—he traveled throughout Germany in the 1890’s and into the early 20th century. As a specialist in industrial settings, his clients included steel manufacturer Krupp Cast, who installed him within their factories to allow him direct access to the subject matter. Just imagine that—a painter and his easel working away while the hot and dangerous work of steel smelting and processing was being performed in close proximity.
Montan gained modest fame for a series of six large paintings of labor and factories that he created for likely display at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. He continued to live and work in Germany until his death in 1917.
Wow! Thank you for the introduction, I didn’t know about Anders Montan! ♥️ 🎨
Thanks for the introduction Martini. I like all kinds of paintings but really enjoy the real life of ordinary people paintings. Most of the time the "important" people sat for unnatural portraits but these showed real life. And showed how important the working people are to society. Good stuff.