Wilhelm von Wright

Wilhelm von Wright (date unknown).

The European roller.

Wilhelm von Wright (5 April 1810, Haminalahti, near Kuopio – 2 July 1887, Orust) was a Swedish-Finnish painter and amateur naturalist.

Biography

His ancestors were Scottish merchants who had settled in Narva during the 17th century and his father was a retired major who owned a large, well-known estate. He was one of nine surviving children and was tutored at home. Two of his brothers, Magnus and Ferdinand, also became painters and illustrators. At the invitation of Magnus, he travelled to Sweden in 1823, where he participated in producing Svenska Fåglar (Swedish birds), a multi-volume set sponsored by Count Nils Bonde.

In 1833, he became a member of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce and, two years later, was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. After 1836, he lived on Orust, in Bohuslän, and was elected the island's Inspector of Fisheries in 1856. Not long after, he had a stroke, which left him incapacitated for the rest of his life. After his wife's death in 1884, he suffered a serious decline and died early in 1887.

His most important solo effort involved Skandinaviens fiskar (Scandinavian fish), by Bengt Fredrik Fries and Carl Jakob Sundevall, for which he provided 60 color illustrations. He also contributed drawings to the Tidskrift för Jagare och Natur Forskaren (Magazine for hunters and naturalists).

Further reading

• Anto Leikola, Juhani Lokki and Torsten Stjernberg:
  • Von Wright -veljesten linnut (“The Birds of the von Wright Brothers”). Otava, 2003. ISBN 951-118-037-1
  • Taiteilijaveljekset von Wright: Suomen kauneimmat lintumaalaukset (“The Artist Brothers von Wright: Finland's Most Beautiful Bird Paintings”). Otava, 1986. ISBN 951-109-231-6
• Wilhelm & Ferdinand von Wright dagböcker (journals). Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 2008. ISBN 978-951-5831-37-8

External links

• More works by von Wright at the Kansallisgalleria.
• "Cultural Path in the Landscape of the von Wright Brothers"