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Pehr Hilleström
Pehr Hilleström
	Self portrait ; (belongs to Nationalmuseum, Stockholm)
Nationality	Swedish
Known for	Painting, Tapestry weaving

Pehr Hilleström (November 18, 1732 – August 13, 1816), was a Swedish artist and from 1794 a professor at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. He became its director in 1810.

In his early years he was one of Sweden's foremost tapestry weavers, but moved later on to painting. He produced numerous paintings of mostly women and children performing various daily tasks inside upper- and middle-class homes in Stockholm. Dresses and furniture were painted exactly the way they looked and provide a valuable source of information about what life was like in those days. In addition to this he painted craftsmen in action at mills and other early industrial workplaces.

Biography

Early years

Pehr Hilleström was born in 1732 Väddö, Roslagen, in Sweden probably November 18. He grew up in poor circumstances on Väddö rectory at his uncle who was vicar there. He was the son of a military and oldest in a family of 12 children. His father has already happened in 1719 in Russian captivity in 1723 but had managed to return to Sweden and then took refuge in his brother on Väddö.

In 1743 the Hillström family moved from Roslagen to Stockholm, where Pehr, 10 years old, was apprenticed to a wallpaper and landscape painter Johan Philip Korn (1727–1796) and between the years 1744 to 1747 even in the immigrant German painter Christian fans Fehmarn. In addition, he was also teaching at the Royal Academy which draws Guillaume Thomas Taraval (1701–1750) and Jean Eric Rehn (1717–1793) was a master teacher.

Following the advice of Carl Harleman was Hillström 1745 apprenticed to Jean Louis Duru (-1753). Duru was haute liss weavers and had been invited to Sweden to make textile decoration for the Royal Palace. The idea was that Hillström would be trained help Duru. 1749 Hillström showed an initial learning tests revealed to the deputation who liked it so much so that he got a reward of 180 dollars copper coins. When Duru died in late 1753 so I Hillström complete the cloak of faith began in heaven, the royal audience room. He was so clever that it could hardly notice any difference between his and his teacher's work. The salary was modest but the 1756 Act of parliament, he received the same annual salary as Duru had, and he received an order for a woven portrait of Harleman performed in haute lisse.

The years 1757-58 Hillström were for a longer period for the artists and the usual trip to abroad. The trip went to Paris, Belgium and Holland, including a tapestry of training techniques that target. In Paris becomes Hillström invited to study painting in the studio of François Bouchers, but the biggest impression in which he took the genre and still life painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, who taught him painting at the French Academy. Back home in Stockholm, he continued, although to make wallpaper, carpets, seat covers and other items for the court. But eventually filled castle needs of tissues while Hillström continued to study painting.

Successes

In 1759, 27 years old, he married 22-year-old Ulrica Lode (1737–1779) and moved to a small apartment at Pelikansgränd 5, Stockholm, where there was a weaving workshop. When King Gustav III reorganized the art academy in 1773, Hillström in their capacity as member haute liss weavers, however, he was already then also worked as a painter. The king ordered several paintings from him in the latter part of his government, and the upper-class art lovers followed his example. Hillström became a really popular artist, and had difficult to keep pace with the demand that his small, charming genre pictures attracted.

The Art Academy appointed him professor of drawing in 1794, and in that position, he taught many students. In 1805 he received the post as Rector of the Academy of Arts school and in 1810 he succeeded Louis Masreliez as its director. He was then too old to do anything important for school.

Hillström died in Stockholm, August 13, 1816, 83 years old.

His work

Hillström tried almost all types of painting, but his real strength was in genre paintings and conversation pieces. He was from the mid-1770s, a prolific chronicler of everyday life. In these paintings one can see fortune tellers, ladies reading, contemporary fashion and home furnishings, kitchen scenes, household chores, travelling salesmen, people playing cards, and more. His paintings are small - with few exceptions. At the end of his career he was often occupied with light effects from fireplaces; pictures with industrial workplaces, hammer mills and domestic interiors lit by fireplaces, left his easel in quick succession.

He painted some thirty portraits, the best known is his portrait of Carl Michael Bellman. He also carried a long series of scenes from contemporary practice environments, there were pictures from glassworks, shipyards, mines and tanks. For the king he was commissioned to perpetuate and the rides and theatrical performances given at the Opera and pleasure palaces. In later years he also began to paint history paintings and religious subjects, though these are not considered to be as appreciated as his other works. In 1810 he established a list of his works and said when he painted the paintings in 1065.