Leif Sodergren
Goteborg - Sweden
Leif Sodergren - Fine Artist
Member Since: 05/20/2012
My name is Leif Sodergren and I live in Gothenburg, SWEDEN.
I paint in an old Folk Art style from the province of Dalarna.
The large floral decorations (kurbits) which you find in all my paintings is an invented, fantastical symbol of vegetal fertility based on a gourd or pumpkin of biblical legend, principally used for ornamentation in Swedish folk art and on painted furniture and domestic objects. Very popular between 1720 and 1870, particularly in Dalarna and southern Norrland, the paintings and murals have mostly biblical motifs, such as 'The Triumphant Entrance of The Queens of Sheba to Jerusalem', and the people and buildings depicted are as locally fashionable at the time of painting. They were done by itinerant painters, mainly from Dalarna, who specialized in the style and whose signatures are to be found in many localities.
