Anna Nordgren

Anna Christina Nordgren (13 May 1847 – 10 September 1916 ) was a Swedish painter and draftswoman. She specialized in portraits and genre scenes. Her work is mostly a variation on the Academic style and she remained unimpressed by Impressionism. She was born at Mariestad to landowning family. The year she was born, they moved to Åsen, an estate near Hjo. Ten years later, they returned to Mariestad then in the 1860s, lived at Sjögerås, another estate near Falköping. She attended the girls' school in Skara, where her teachers noticed her artistic talent and began giving her lessons in oil painting. In 1865, she enrolled in formal studies at the Slöjdskolan Stockholm and later became one of the first female students at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. While there, she studied with Carl Gustaf Qvarnström (1810–1867) and after his death, with Johan Christoffer Boklund (1817–1880). On the advice of Boklund, she went to Paris in 1874 to continue her studies.