Anna Nordgren
1847–1916 · Swedish portrait and genre painter and draftswoman
Anna Christina Nordgren (Mariestad, 13 May 1847 – Skara, 10 September 1916) was a Swedish painter and draftswoman who specialized in portraits and genre scenes. Her work largely follows the Academic style, and she remained unmoved by Impressionism.
Born into a landowning family, she moved several times around Sweden as a child. Her teachers at the girls' school in Skara noticed her talent and gave her her first lessons in oil painting. In 1865 she enrolled at the Slöjdskolan in Stockholm and later became one of the first women students at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, where she studied with Carl Gustaf Qvarnström and, after his death, with Johan Christoffer Boklund.
On Boklund's advice she went to Paris in 1874. She studied at the Académie Julian under Tony Robert-Fleury and took extra lessons at Carolus-Duran's private academy, and she was influenced by Jules Bastien-Lepage. She stayed in Paris until 1883. Her works were shown at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 and at the Paris Salon in 1879, and King Oscar bought one of her paintings. After a period painting in Brittany, she settled in London, where she exhibited widely, including two solo shows at the Clifford Galleries in 1894 and 1897. Her acquaintances there included James McNeill Whistler and the Irish painter Sarah Purser.
She returned to Sweden in 1899 but kept visiting London regularly. She lived in Gothenburg, Drottningholm and Stockholm before settling in Skara in 1913, where she died in 1916.