Seaward Skerries
1913
Medium
Etching; only state
Dimensions
Plate: 7 1/16 × 9 13/16 in. (18 × 25 cm) Sheet: 12 7/8 × 16 15/16 in. (32.7 × 43.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917
Accession Number
17.3.710
Tags
Art Historical Context
Anders Zorn’s *Seaward Skerries* (1913) is a finely wrought etching that reflects the Swedish artist’s lifelong fascination with the nude figure in the open air. Zorn, celebrated for his virtuoso printmaking, produced this work in a single state, allowing the composition to stand as he first conceived it. The modest plate size belies the richness of tone he achieved through delicate cross-hatching and subtle wiping of the ink, techniques that give the scene a luminous, almost painterly quality. The subject—a group of women bathing among the rocky skerries of the Swedish coast—embodies Zorn’s ...
About the Artist
Anders Zorn · 1860–1920
Anders Zorn (1860–1920), one of Sweden's most celebrated artists, was born on February 18 in Utmeland near Mora in Dalarna, and raised on his maternal grandparents' farm in the nearby hamlet of Yvraden. Displaying prodigious talent from a young age, he attended school in Mora Strand until age twelve, followed by secondary grammar school in Enköping, where he excelled in drawing people and horses. ...