Swimming Great black-backed gulls

Liljefors's 'Swimming Great Black-backed Gulls' of 1936 was painted when the artist was seventy-six, making it one of his latest documented works. The great black-backed gull (Larus marinus) — the largest gull species in Europe — is a powerful presence on the Swedish archipelago, where Liljefors spent much of his later career. These birds' massive size, striking black-and-white plumage, and dominance in the gull hierarchy made them imposing subjects, very different from the delicate small birds he also painted with such attention. Swimming birds presented particular compositional and optical challenges: the relationship between the birds' plumage, the water's surface, and the reflections beneath the surface required careful observation of how light behaves differently above and below the waterline. At seventy-six, Liljefors was still producing work of remarkable authority — his late style broad and confident, informed by more than fifty years of observing and painting the wildlife of Sweden's coasts and forests.

Swimming birds require the painter to observe the specific waterline — where above-water plumage meets the submerged body — and the distinctive way reflections distort beneath the surface. Liljefors handles the black-and-white plumage with the sureness of long familiarity, the broad brushwork of his late style giving the birds impressive physical presence.