Einar Nerman
Encyclopedia
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
artist. He was born and grew up in middle class family in the working-class city of Norrköping
Norrköping
Norrköping is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County. The city has a population of 87,247 inhabitants in 2010, out of a municipal total of 130,050, making it Sweden's tenth largest city and eighth largest...
and was the younger brother of the Swedish Communist leader Ture Nerman
Ture Nerman
Ture Nerman was a Swedish socialist. As a journalist and author, he was a well-known political activist in his time. He also wrote poems and songs.Nerman was a vegetarian and a strict teetotaler...
. Einar Nerman also had a twin brother, Birger Nerman
Birger Nerman
Birger Nerman was a Swedish archaeologist, professor, and author.-Background:Birger Nerman belonged to a bourgeois family Nerman from Vimmerby. He was the son of Janne Nerman , the bookseller in Norrköping, and his wife Anna Ida Nordberg...
, who was an archeologist.
Einar Nerman dropped out of his Norrköping Gymnasium High School
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
in 1905 and moved to Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
to study art. In 1908 he moved to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
for many years to pursue his interest in art, studying with Matisse at the Academie Matisse in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
When he came back to Sweden in 1912 he started studying music and taking dance lessons. In the 1920s Nerman lived in London and drew images for The Tatler. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he lived and worked in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
Einar Nerman wrote songs and music and composed music and to many of his brother Ture Nerman’s poems. He also made many of the artistic book covers for his Communist brother's published writings.
Einar Nerman also made illustrations for many of the books by Selma Lagerlöf
Selma Lagerlöf
Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish author. She was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and most widely known for her children's book Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige ....
. In Sweden today, he is mostly known, or unknown, for being the man behind the art of the Solstickan
Solstickan
Solstickan is a Swedish charity foundation founded in 1936 for aiding children in need. Its ruling board is appointed by the Swedish government. The money for the foundation is gathered through the sales of the Solstickan matchbox, which over the years have become the most well known and purchased...
matchbox. He also made some famous drawings of Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
, one of which was used on a postage stamp in 2005, a hundred years after the moviestar's birth.
A book of his drawings appeared in 1976: Caught in the Act (Harrap, London) with an introduction by his friend, lyricist Sandy Wilson
Sandy Wilson
Sandy Wilson is an English composer and lyricist, best known for his musical The Boy Friend .-Biography:Wilson was born Alexander Galbraith Wilson in Sale, Greater Manchester, and was educated at Harrow School and Oriel College, Oxford. During the war he served in the Royal Ordnance Corps in Great...
. It contained many caricatures of friends in the London theatre world. From 1922 to 1930 he was the theatre cartoonist for The Tatler and also worked for the fashionable magazine Eve. The book is dedicated to Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
whom he had met in Stockholm in 1918. In the 1940s in New York he worked for the Journal-American
New York Journal American
The New York Journal American was a newspaper published from 1937 to 1966. The Journal American was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst: The New York American , a morning paper, and the New York Evening Journal, an afternoon paper...
. There is much additional information in Caught in the Act, as well as examples of his work, sometimes said to be "Beardsleyesque
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....
."