What a mind-boggling adventure it is to view Bruno Liljefors’ paintings! His paintings are devoted to natural scenes of forests, hills and trees, with wolves, wildcats and quite a number of other animals hunting or just napping under the sun with their little ones.

The Russian artist had remained largely ignored, even in his own country, following his death in the mid-20th century. But now, the Petit Palais Museum in Paris, at the corner of Champs Elysees and Avenue Winston Churchill, is paying homage to this genius who spent his entire life creating works fascinated not just by natural images but by the behavior of animals and birds.

Known during his own lifetime as the ‘Prince of the Wild World’, Bruno Liljefors (1860-1939) never stopped stunning art enthusiasts in Russia and Paris, where he stayed for some years to learn the latest techniques of painting.

In the words of one of the organisers of the current exhibition: “To bring home the memories of our dear Bruno, forgotten today even in his own country, we have decided to open the doors of our palace to all the foxes, wolves, owls, swans, cats, ducks and rabbits that this youthful genius had brought to life with such talent but also with such fascination for nature that had remained his passion until his dying day!”

Bruno Liljefors’ paintings serve as a tribute to both the allure and mystery of nature and wildlife

In order to further highlight the painter’s devotion to the charisma of wildlife, the Petit Palais projects a documentary, filmed in 1917, in which Bruno Liljefors is seen surrounded by animals and painting them while he had briefly stayed in Paris.

Born in 1860 in a middle-class Swedish family, Bruno grew up in Uppsala, a small town north of Stockholm, surrounded by vast expanses of wilderness. From a very young age, he remained fascinated with wildlife

and painted it for the rest of his life. While still a teenager, he constantly travelled to Germany and Italy, then finally settling down in Paris, but also visiting, from time-to-time, the picturesque northern French town of Grez-sur-Loing, where a number of Scandinavian artists had permanently settled.

Once satisfied with his own artistic perfection, the 22-year-old Bruno returned to his native country in 1884 and devoted himself for the rest of his life to representing nature and animals in all his works. His unusual adventures turned him into an athlete who fearlessly climbed up trees and hills, often to dizzying heights, in his efforts to capture the attitudes of animals in the scenes of their daily lives , such as cats hunting birds, a pack of wolves chasing rabbits or eagles tracking their own victims.

The Paris exhibition contains some of the paintings never seen before even by Swedish art experts, one of them being Johan Olsson, the curator at the Stockholm National Museum, who has played an important role in bringing together Bruno Liljefors’ works to the Petit Palais.

He says he was surprised to see many of the paintings that are actually part of the personal collection of the reigning King Carl Gustaf of Sweden, currently the oldest living sovereign in Europe: “They are not among the works displayed at the royal palace in Stockholm that I visited a number of times. I was totally amazed to see them in Paris for the first time in my life!”

Leaving the gate of the Petit Palais after seeing these swashbuckling creations one has the impression of returning home following an adventurous voyage through a dense Swedish forest full of birds and beasts!

‘Bruno Liljefors: The Wild Man from Sweden’ is on display at the Petit Palais Museum in Paris from October 1, 2024-February 16, 2025

The writer is an art critic based in Paris.
He can be reached at zafmasud@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 1st, 2024