Carl and Karin Larsson Creators of the Swedish Style

Carl Larsson (1853-1919) is Sweden's best loved artist & is known around the world for his paintings of his home & family. At their famous house at Sundborn, in central Sweden, Carl & his wife, Karin, a textile designer, created a series of revolutionary interiors that combined old furniture & objects with startlingly modern concepts of color & design. These designs inspired a new approach to interior design that continues to influence designers today. In 1894 Carl began recording everyday life at Sundborn in a series of intimate watercolors painted in a fresh new style. They were published in 1899 under the title Ett hem (A Home), accompanied by text on Larsson's ideas about decoration. The Larssons' ideas on domestic decoration, with their revolutionary approach to light & color, became a vital element in the creation of a twentieth-century Swedish Style. But the Larssons' inspiration was not only Swedish. In fact their style was a brilliant synthesis of Swedish folk elements & ideas taken from the English Arts & Crafts Movement as well as Art Nouveau & Japonisme. This book presents the Larssons as designers & as creators of a remarkable domestic ideal. It sets them in their artistic & social context, using contemporary photographs & comparative pictures. At its heart are the remarkable Ett hem paintings & a stunning series of color photographs showing the interiors at Sundborn & Karin's glorious textiles, a continuing inspiration to interior designers & homemakers to.Snodin, Michael is the author of 'Carl and Karin Larsson Creators of the Swedish Style' with ISBN 9780821227138 and ISBN 0821227130.