Jenny Nyström
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jenny Eugenia Nyström (born June 13 or June 15, 1854 in Kalmar, Sweden; died January 17, 1946 in Stockholm) was a painter and illustrator of children’s books, but is mainly known as the person who created the Swedes’ image of the “jultomte” on numerous Christmas cards and magazine covers, thus linking the Swedish version of Santa Claus to the gnomes of Scandinavian folklore.
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[edit] Childhood, education and family life
Her father was a school teacher and piano teacher, and also the cantor of the Kalmar Castle Church. When Jenny Nyström was eight years old, the family moved to Gothenburg, where her father had found a better paying teaching job.
In 1865 she started in the Gothenburg art school Göteborgs Musei-, Rit- och Målarskola, today known as Konsthögskolan Valand, and in 1873 she was admitted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm, where she studied for eight years. Thanks to a scholarship, this was followed by studies in Paris 1882-1886, at Académie Colarossi and Académie Julian. While in Paris, she discovered the booming postcard market, and tried to persuade the Swedish publishing house Bonnier to start producing postcards, but they declined. She, however, eventually became Sweden’s most productive postcard artist.
In 1887, at the age of 33, she married the medical student Daniel Stoopendaal, brother of fellow artists Ferdinand Stoopendaal. Wilhelm Johan Stoopendaal, Georg Stoopendaal and Ebba Stoopendaal. Due to tuberculosis Daniel was never able to finish his studies and take up his intended profession. It was instead up to Jenny to support herself, her husband and their son thorough her artistry, while Daniel handled her business affairs. He died in 1927.
In 1933 her son, Curt Nyström Stoopendahl, followed in her footsteps and also became a popular postcard and poster artist, staying very close to his mother’s artistic style. Even his signature, “Curt Nyström”, looked like his mother’s. Likewise, her brother-in-law, Georg Stoopendaal (1866-1953), already in the beginning of the 19th century found postcards to be a good source of income, contrary to his more serious paintings, and his Christmas cards are also clearly inspired by Jenny Nyström's.
