Axel Törneman

Who is Axel Törneman?

Johan Axel Gustaf Törneman was one of Sweden's earliest modernist painters. He was born in Persberg, Värmland and died in Stockholm. Working in several modernist styles, he was one of the first Swedish expressionist artists and became a part of the international avant-garde in art after having embraced the then-new, more abstract art style in Germany and France during the early 1900s. He created his most famous paintings, Night Café I and II and Trait, in France in 1905. Törneman's night café paintings, made from studies in the Place Pigalle nightclub popular with artists, Café du Rat Mort, can be seen as two of Swedish modernism's most important works, although Törneman was less influenced by the French modernists than by the Germans.

Törneman gained international stature in 1905 in the Salon d'Automne in Paris with his painting Trait I and with Narragansett Café in 1906. Törneman also painted murals and decorations in public buildings such as the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm City Hall, other Stockholm buildings such as Norra Latin and Östermalms läroverk, "Östra Real", and including the second chamber in Parliament House. Törneman was recognized in the U.S. in 1915 at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, with a gold medal.