- Emil Janel
Emil Janel.(1897–1981) was an artist born in the village
Hansjö nearOrsa Municipality inDalarna County,Sweden .Although he was a respected still life painter, he is mainly known for hiscaricature s in theScandinavian flat-plane style of woodcarving , and is considered by many to be the best of his genre.Emil is said to have referred to his style as "exaggerated realism".
In 1923 Janel moved to
Canada , then toSeattle, Washington . After some encouragement by a local store keeper, he eventually settled inSan Francisco with his wife and began study at what is now theSan Francisco Art Institute . During the 1930's, he spent considerable time at Russian River, where he produced carvings of a local species ofAlder Wood. It is said that he preferred that particular medium because of the similarity to flesh tones, and that he kept his carvings in a bucket of water to keep them wet while working on them. He used very thinaniline dye s on the non-flesh portions of his carvings. In 1965 he was awarded The RoyalOrder of Vasa (Kungliga Vasaorden) by theking of Sweden for his artistic contributions. In 1981 Emil Janel died in San Francisco.Over 35 Janel carvings are part of the permanent collection of the
American Swedish Institute , donated by collector, artist and authorIra Weissman .References
*"Master American Woodcarver - Emil Janel". Ira Weissman & John Matthews 1984
*"The Little People of Emil Janel". Thelma Winnie, October 1964 edition of "Western Collector Magazine"External links
* [http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=12&uid=129023&gid=237349& A Gallery of many of Emil Janel's works]
* [http://www.americanswedishinst.org/ the American Swedish Institute]
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