Gustaf Wilhelm Palm Biography
Gustaf Wilhelm Palm (1810 - 1890) was a Swedish landscape painter and art professor.
After completing his basic studies, a friend of the family helped him study with Anders Arvid Arvidsson in Lund, who taught him to draw. On his advice, Palm created some illustrations for a book on European algae written by botanist Carl Adolph Agardh. Subsequently, he attended the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and supported himself by doing further illustrations; particularly for the zoologist Sven Nilsson.
His early works were landscapes in the Romantic style that showed the influence of Carl Johan Fahlcrantz. After traveling to Norway in 1833 with Count Michael Gustaf Anckarsvärd, he was influenced by Johan Christian Dahl and began to depict nature more realistically. This change materialized in his 1837 book of lithographs.
The same year, Palm went to Berlin for treatment of an unspecified eye disease. Rather than return home, he traveled throughout Germany and spent two years in Vienna; finally arriving in Rome in 1840. That winter, he went to Venice, filling sketchbooks which he took with him to Rome. In all, he spent eleven years in Italy, becoming part of a group of Swedish artists who dominated the Swedish art scene until the rise of the Düsseldorf School.
In 1851, he toured Spain and Paris, later returning to Sweden. The following year he was appointed a member of the Royal Academy. In 1856 he married Eva Sandberg, daughter of professor Johan Gustaf Sandberg. Their daughter, Anna Palm de Rosa, also became a painter. He began teaching at the Academy in 1859. His students called him "Palma Vecchio" (Old Palm, in Italian) and he began to sign his works with an image of a palm tree. His works can be seen at the Nationalmuseum, the Göteborgs konstmuseum and the Uppsala University Library
