- Jenny Nyström
Jenny Eugenia Nyström (born
June 13 orJune 15 ,1854 inKalmar ,Sweden ; diedJanuary 17 ,1946 inStockholm ) was a painter andillustrator of children’s books, but is mainly known as the person who created the Swedes’ image of the “jultomte” on numerousChristmas cards and magazine covers, thus linking the Swedish version ofSanta Claus to thegnome s ofScandinavia nfolklore .Childhood, education and family life
Her father was a school teacher and piano teacher, and also the cantor of the
Kalmar Castle Church. When Jenny Nyström was eight years old, the family moved toGothenburg , where her father had found a better paying teaching job.In 1865 she started in the Gothenburg art school Göteborgs Musei-, Rit- och Målarskola, today known as
Konsthögskolan Valand , and in 1873 she was admitted to theRoyal Swedish Academy of Arts inStockholm , where she studied for eight years. Thanks to a scholarship, this was followed by studies inParis 1882-1886, atAcadémie Colarossi andAcadémie Julian . While in Paris, she discovered the boomingpostcard market, and tried to persuade the Swedish publishing houseBonnier to start producing postcards, but they declined. She, however, eventually became Sweden’s most productive postcard artist.In 1887, at the age of 33, she married the medical student Daniel Stoopendaal, brother of fellow artists
Ferdinand Stoopendaal .Wilhelm Johan Stoopendaal ,Georg Stoopendaal andEbba Stoopendaal . Due totuberculosis Daniel was never able to finish his studies and take up his intended profession. It was instead up to Jenny to support herself, her husband and their son through her artistry, while Daniel handled her business affairs. He died in 1927.In 1933 her son,
Curt Nyström Stoopendahl , followed in her footsteps and also became a popular postcard and poster artist, staying very close to his mother’s artistic style. Even his signature, “Curt Nyström”, looked like his mother’s. Likewise, her brother-in-law, Georg Stoopendaal (1866-1953), already in the beginning of the 19th century found postcards to be a good source of income, contrary to his more serious paintings, and his Christmas cards are also clearly inspired by Jenny Nyström's.Production
ee also
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Haddon Sundblom External links
* [http://www.kalmarlansmuseum.se/site/utstallning/jenny/uts_jenny.asp Jenny Nyström on the Kalmar County Museum website]
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