Chimney Sweep

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Robert Högfeldt
Chimney Sweep

About the Item

Chimney Sweep Watercolor, ink and pencil, 27 x 18 cm, signed R. Högfeldt. Robert Högfeldt was born in Holland with Swedish parents in 1894. Five years later, the family moved to Düsseldorf, where Högfeldt spent three years as a teenager at the School of Arts and Crafts. The contacts with the old and new German art gave a lasting impression on the young man, and during this time the first humorous drawings were added. As a 19-year-old, Högfeldt came to Sweden and the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, where he stayed until 1917. After the end of the First World War, several long journeys followed, during which he became acquainted with the Italian and French masters. But it was still the Germans and the Dutch who had the most to give him, especially Breughel, Menzel, Busch, Spitzweg and Moritz von Schwindt. For that reason, it was also - unsurprisingly - the German art audience that quickly embraced him. In Sweden, on the other hand, he was seen for a long time as a fairy tale illustrator rather than as an artist. He contributed to this to some extent himself, when in the 1920s he illustrated many classic fairy tales and fairy tales, such as Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland and Baron von Münchhausen's Adventures. It was not until 1937, when P. A. Norstedts publisher published En Högfeldtbok, with 36 color reproductions from Högfeldt's own free image production and text by art professor Henric Cornell, that the view of Högfeldt's art began to shift, to eventually gain ground in France, England and the USA. When the same publisher published En ny Högfeldtbok in 1943, the artist personally contributed the text, which he called "Self-Consideration". It shows that Robert Högfeldt's main driving force was to amuse the viewer, at the same time as he amused himself. For example, he begins the section “It's fun to draw old men” with the words: “I have always enjoyed drawing old men. It gives me a really incomprehensible satisfaction. " (p. 17). But whether his "old men" are funny or serious, and regardless of the humorous or fairy-tale-like content of the picture, there is always a deeply human feeling, which seeks its expression in his portrayals. Although Högfeldt's view of man was anything but silly, most of his images are characterized by an unmistakably naive charm. They convey a kind of intuitive view of the world, which can make even the most hardened viewer unknowingly pull their mouths. Robert Högfeldt had the ability to achieve the effect he intended in his images with small, subtle means. By drawing his "old men" with overly expressive faces and / or gestures, he evoked their typical character traits. With special empathy, he portrayed "old men" who personified positive mental states; for example, everyday joy and contentment. Just look at the little chimney sweep, who is the main character in this watercolor. Look how happy he looks where he stands with his whisper and his weight, carbon black from head to toe and with the soot steaming straight up his nose! But is his contented mind really just an expression of sheer job satisfaction? Or is he, in fact, grinning at the fact that his whisper happened to tickle the inhabitants of the stump house in the buttocks? In any case, the old man's snooping mine suggests that in this picture more is happening than the artist shows. Exhibited Åmell's theme exhibition Robert Högfeldt, 2002, cat no. 7.

Creator:
Robert Högfeldt (1894 - 1986, Holland, Swedish)
Dimensions:
Height: 10.63 in (27 cm)Width: 7.09 in (18 cm)
Medium:
Watercolor,Ink,Color Pencil
Period:
Mid-20th Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Stockholm, SE
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU184529906712