Carl Larsson’s and Karin Bergoo’s studios & Inspiring Artist’s Workplaces

–What makes an artist’s studio?–

This blog post starts with famous pastel paintings of Carl Larsson’s home studios of him and his wife Karin Bergöö. Such paintings make us long for more, but why? Is it because we want to nail what makes an artist’s studio? We will find out by asking different artists what makes their work place functional and special to them.

Carl Larssson & Karin Bergöö Studios

Aren’t Carl Larssson and Karin Bergöö’s studios inspiring? For me they are but that is because I can relate to artists’ studios. Whether it is the inevitable messiness or chaos that comes with creating art, or the opposite, the neatness and organization, artist’s studios are fascinating.

Painter, illustrator, and artist Carl Larsson (1853-1919) was a representative of the Arts and Crafts Movement and is best known for his idyllic paintings of family life. He married artist Karin Bergöö (1859-1928) with whom he had eight children. With so many children there was no shortage of models for his family life paintings. Larsson and Bergöö’s creative marriage must have been helpful in setting up their inspiring studios.

Carl Larsson’s studio looks so inviting because of its soft pastel tones that add to a friendly atmosphere. Larsson’s studio juxtaposes Rembrandt’s dark, baroque atelier which makes us want to switch on a light. Larsson’s desk with an ink-pot for sketching, a tool rack for preparing canvases, and a painter’s easel for painting are the eye-catching pieces of his room. On his desk lie various sketches and, in the corner several paintings in process. Larsson might walk in, sit down, and continue with whatever project he has in his mind. There is nice light emanating from the window and the pillows show Swedish folk-art designs, undoubtedly designed by his wife and textile designer Karin Bergöö.

More about Carl Larsson is here.

Here we see Carl and Karin ‘After the Children have gone to bed’ (1901). We see Karin working on her textile art but unluckily we cannot see what she is doing exactly, perhaps embroidery, mending, or upholstery?

There is one painting of Karin inside her textile design room, showing her standing near her loom. Karin, being Carl’s muse and wife, has her work immortalized in many of Carl’s paintings of their home at Sundborn. Their creative and aesthetic partnership was a lucky one and one can tell by how attractive and inviting they proudly show their workplaces.

Let us have a look at some contemporary artists;

Paula Kuitenbrouwer’s Art Room

‘My atelier has a large table in the middle for my workstation, piles of reference books, boxes full coloured pencils, and pots with pencils and brushes. I need to move these things around during the various processes of art-making. There are painter’s easels in my art room for my work-in-progress and for my finished artwork. My art room has large north-east facing windows for overlooking a residential area with trees and some churches. I love my workroom and should I be imprisoned there (we had 3 lock-downs), I would stoically continue with art-making without being too needy for going out.

I allow messiness during the art making process. After I have finished a drawing or painting, I clean and reorganize my room. I pay attention to my room being artistically pleasing. I have never walked into my art room without feeling eagerness to sit down and make art. A place where an artistic mind opens itself to the mysteries of life, like inspiration, fills itself with a special atmosphere. My room nourished my soul even without me drawing or painting’.

Maryse Kluck, aspiring writer

‘My desk must be colourful but not obnoxiously so. It must not be messy but have an absence of an absence; it must have pictures referring to a story that sits in my mind. Pictures of a place, a painting, and books that are like my friends. I need these aesthetics because I need something to produce something. I consider literature as a work of art and art leads to art. Spiritual things are necessary for me too because I regard inspiration coming from God.

An element of ancestral worship is important to me too, but it is not a blood relation that I need. I need pictures and books from the Brontës or Mary Shelley, or William Holman Hunt, because it shows respect to those from whom you draw inspiration from. We aren’t unique, we are part of a tradition, we are always in a way plagiarizing, standing on the shoulders of those before us and therefore we need to venerate and credit them. If Emily Brontë does not inspire anymore, that is the moment that she really is dead. Thus, my work desk is rather busy, yet organized’.

Two articles by Maryse Kluck are here and here. Maryse is one of the two Literary Ladies who published the Gothic Literature Magazine. It is available here.

Ancient Sage Designs at Shazeeda’s Atelier

‘There is no “must look like” in an artist’s studio. An artist’s studio needs to be a place that serves the artist’s creativity. For me, that space must allow me to focus. It needs to be quiet so I can read and write about the ancient art that inspires my embroidery patterns. I need a space where I can be alone. The only time I enjoy someone’s company during my creative process is when I am stitching a new pattern.

I also need adequate light. I live in the northern hemisphere and the room that I use to make my art is in the northwest corner of the building. The room has a west window and a north window, but not enough light comes through these windows. The natural light in the room doesn’t allow me to see the holes in the evenweave fabric that I use to embroider. So, I have adapted to using a task lamp while I stitch. When selecting my colour palette, I don’t choose my thread colours in this room. Instead, I go where there is natural light so I can see the true colours that I am working with.

When I am away from my studio, my favourite places to stitch are wherever I find lots of natural light streaming through a  window or where I can sit outside in the shade. It is my dream to one day have a studio with lots of natural light’.

Shazeeda Linktree is here and her online shop is here.

Inspiration & Concentration

A studio is a place where inspiration and concentration meet, and to achieve that artists create various conditions and aesthetics. A studio can be a boat, a garden shed, a corner in a room. It may contain common objects like a laptop or magnifying lamp but most likely it is instantly recognizable as a studio, as a special place carrying the idiosyncratic signature of an artist. More about inspiring artist’s studios and also about communal cultural kitchens functioning as artist’s studios one finds in Inspiring Artist’s Studios Part II.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

Inspiring Artist’s Studios Part II is here.

More reading on Larsson and on the studios of two famous artists, William Morris and Mariano Fortuny:

• Visiting Lebuïnus’s Well (Deventer, Netherlands)
• Order your Mandarin Duck Art Card (frame-able)
• Why Should you Write a Spiritual Resume (Curriculum Vitae)?
• How to Write your Spiritual Resume, or Curriculum Vitae?
• Inspiring Artist Studios II