Edvard Westman

Gustav Edvard Westman (born in Gävle, 16 May 1865 – died near Norrtälje, 23 September 1917) was a Swedish painter associated with the plein air style. His work, centred on landscape and natural studies made in oil or etching, places him among the Nordic artists who painted outdoors in the late nineteenth century.

Although born in Gävle, he spent most of his childhood in Stockholm, where he first attended the Swedish Academy from 1882 to 1883 and then studied with the artist Oscar Törnå. He continued his training at the Düsseldorf Academy from 1883 to 1885 under Heinrich Lauenstein, followed by time in Paris and Belgium.

After his Paris years he joined artists' colonies at Skagen in Denmark and at Önningeby on the Åland island. He spent several years in Turku, Finland, and often returned to Åland, where he worked alongside Victor Westerholm. In Önningeby he met the Finnish painter Hanna Rönnberg; the two secretly became engaged but never married.

He showed work at the Swedish Association of Artists (Konstnärsförbundet) exhibitions in Gothenburg and Stockholm in 1891, and also at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and the Industrial Exhibition in Lund in 1907. He died in an accident near his home in Norrtälje in 1917.

His works are held in the Skagen Museum, the Önningebymuseet and museums in Gävleborg and Turku. His landscapes of Normandy, Åland and Skagen remain a record of outdoor painting in the Nordic countries of his time.