In June 2022, August Strindberg's Vågen V was sold for the record sum of SEK 84 million (about $8.3 million). The oil painting from 1901 became the most expensive Swedish work of art sold at auction. Now the Swedish playwright and author appears in the auction room again. The oil painting Flower of the Moor was originally a gift from the artist to his housekeeper. At the end of February, it will be auctioned at Christie's in London for the equivalent of $670,000-1 million.
Related: ‘Wave V’ Becomes the Most Expensive Swedish Work of Art Ever Sold
August Strindberg (1849-1912), who was a self-taught artist, turned to painting as a means of expression when his writing career and private life were in crisis. Painting gave him an opportunity to express feelings that he could not describe in words alone. He explained that it was an activity that made it possible for his "turbulent feelings to take shape" (quote from Strindberg: målaren och fotografen, Stockholm 2001).
Flower of the Moor was painted around 1901-2, a period when Strindberg drew inspiration from his travels in the Stockholm archipelago and the Alps. He often used subjects from these locations, focusing on vast seascapes, rolling moorland and the tumultuous weather conditions that could sweep across these areas.
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Fascinated by the material properties of paint, he created thick layers of impasto using a palette knife to create dynamic surfaces on the canvas. Strindberg embraced spontaneity and relied on his inner impulses to determine the direction of his painting. This approach is evident in Flower of the Moor – an x-ray of the canvas reveals that Strindberg originally intended to paint a tree, but later changed the composition and replaced it with the flowers in the lower right corner.
Strindberg gave the painting to his housekeeper as a gift shortly after it was created, and since then it has only changed hands once. The seller of the painting is Swiss businessman Jaqui Safra, who also sold Wave V. It comes up for auction at Christie's 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on February 28 alongside works by Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter, Lucian Freud and Alberto Giacometti.
