Erik Axel Karlfedt, the poet

Erik Axel Karlfeldt, the Poet of 1918 is Carl Larsson's portrait of one of the most celebrated Swedish poets of the early twentieth century. Erik Axel Karlfeldt, who posthumously received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1931, was deeply associated with the landscape and folk traditions of Dalarna — the same Swedish heartland region where Larsson had his Sundborn home. The two men shared a commitment to rooting Swedish cultural expression in its regional traditions and the rhythms of rural life. That Larsson chose to paint Karlfeldt in 1918 — just three years before his own death — reflects the aging artist's desire to document the cultural figures of his world. The Nationalmuseum's portrait captures the poet near the end of both their careers, two men who had together embodied a particular vision of Swedish cultural identity grounded in landscape and folk tradition.

In this late oil portrait, Larsson applies his precise line sensibility to canvas. The poet's face is rendered with attention to psychological presence that distinguishes a portrait of a known individual from a generic study.