Who is Hugo Birger?

Hugo Birger (born Hugo Birger Peterson) (12 January 1854 – 17 June 1887) was a Swedish painter.

Born in Stockholm, his daddy was printmaker S. A. Peterson. Birger studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts from 1870 to 1877. In 1877, he was awarded in imitation of the “Royal medal” for his painting Syndafallet. It was praised for its strong colors and shininess.

Birger moved to Paris in 1877, and spent the summer of 1878 in Barbizon following Carl Larsson and Carl Skånberg. He debuted at the Paris Salon the in the proclaim of year with Rue Gabrielle (1879, now in the Gothenburg Museum of Art). He submitted his painting Toaletten (English: The Toilet), which depicts a woman in front of the toilet mirror, to the Paris Salon in 1880. From 1881 to 1882, Birger visited Spain and Northern Africa. His largest painting from Spain was La feria (“The Feast Day”, 1882, Gothenburg Museum of Art), which depicts a breakfast in Granada.

After 1882, Birger spent become old in Paris, in Gothenburg, and at the Swedish west coast, where he studied the cliffs and the fjords. In Paris at the fade away of 1886, Birger made his largest painting ever, Frukosten hos Ledoyen. It depicts several famous Nordic painters having breakfast together on the day of the Paris Salon’s opening. It was a common tradition for the painters to gather upon that day and have breakfast at the Ledoyen restaurant to celebrate the start of the Paris Salon. Birger made sketches of the breakfast even though it took place, and far ahead had everything the painters sit model for him in his atelier. He submitted Frukosten hos Ledoyen to the Paris Salon in 1886, hoping that it would win first prize. It did not, however, and Richard Bergh was awarded in the make public of first prize.

Birger suffered from health issues in 1887 and died at Hotel Mollberg in Helsingborg, Sweden, on 17 June 1887, on his way house from France.

Hugo Birger is buried at “Nya kyrkogården” (the new cemetery) in Helsingborg, near the chapel. The grave rock was previously adorned subsequent to a support made by the good buddy Carl Larsson. Due to an increasing number of thefts in the area, the native relief was removed in 2008 and is now replaced by a copy.

The largest buildup of Birger’s paintings is in the Gothenburg Museum of Art, but some can next be seen at the National Museum of Arts in Stockholm. During his career, Birger made portraits of famous painters such as Alfred Wahlberg, Albert Edenfeldt, Per Hasselberg, Robert Thegerström, Carl Larsson, Georg Pauli, and Ernst Josephson.

Birger was married to Mathilda Gadea, whom he met in Granada in Spain.

This article contains content from the Owl Edition of Nordisk familjebok, a Swedish encyclopedia published amongst 1904 and 1926, now in the public domain.