Lekking Black Grouse at Dawn

This 1930 canvas of lekking black grouse at dawn revisits one of Liljefors's most enduring subjects. He had painted black grouse displaying since the late 1880s, and over four decades of engagement with this subject he developed an unmatched ability to convey the ritualistic drama of the spring lek. Black grouse leks traditionally occur at traditional sites where males return year after year, fighting and displaying before assembled females in the pale light before and after dawn. The encounter of blue-black displaying males against a landscape transitioning from winter to spring — snow receding, first grasses appearing — gave Liljefors a compositional problem he could solve in multiple ways. In this 1930 version he was in his early seventies, and the painting reflects the accumulated knowledge of someone who had observed these birds at close range many times and had developed a visual language fully equal to the task of conveying their energy and physical presence within the specific atmospheric conditions of dawn.

Black grouse males are among the most challenging bird subjects: their plumage is predominantly dark but iridescent, with blue-black and green-black shifting under the available light. Liljefors renders this by building the dark forms in layers, adding warm or cool colour variants to suggest the iridescent quality. The pre-dawn light is handled in cool greys and pale blues.