After studying at the Higher School of Art and the Scuola di Tessitura in Milan, Greta Gahn was the director and artistic director of the hand-work friends from 1931 to 1951.
During the war years and the time thereafter, it was mainly Gahn in collaboration with Alf Munthe who responded for most of the monumental textile art in churches and public buildings.
She was also together with Munthe co-owner of Lekattgården, a workshop for tissue and embroidery. Greta Gahns Artistic judgement and technical know-how was crucial to Munthe's textile works.
Image description: Greta Gahn, unknown year. Photo: Margit Karlson / Leksands Local History archive. Leksands-Culture House [The image is cropped] Click here for an uncropped image
Maj Bring grew up in Uppsala at Sysslomansgatan 8 and later on the Skolgatan. She studied at the Vilhelmssons painting school in Gothenburg and at the Academy of Arts and for Henri Matisse in Paris from 1908 to 1910.
Bring had her own art school in Stockholm and was chairman of the Association Swedish Women Artists between the years 1949–1951. Bring painted landscapes in modernist style and later worked with collages and sequined paintings.
Her autobiography Counter-Clockwise (1986) is in reissue supplemented with a large amount of pictures from her oeuvre. The book depicts her artistry and her time in Paris. The republication has been done by Maj Bring's fund
Works of art by Maj Bring are represented at Moderna Museet, National Museum, Sahlströmsgården in Torsby, Aguelimuseet in Sala, Per Ekström Museum in Mörbylånga and Borås Museum.
In 2008 several artists were honored to have the streets and parks in Stockholm named after them. Maj Bring is represented among them.
Image description: May Bring, 1904. Photo: Retrieved from the book Maj Bring – Motsols. Memoarer och konst. 2007. [The image is cropped] Click here for an uncropped image
Otto von Friesen was born in Kulltorps Parish, Jönköping County and his most important scientific work deals with the runic script.
1897 became von Friesen docent at the Nordic languages at Uppsala University.
He published about the descent of the Runic script (1906) and the Smoke Stone (1920) in which he claimed that the enigmatic stone is about a conflict between Östgötar and Frisian merchants.
During the years 1905–1936 was von Friesen professor of Swedish language, became a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1928 and elected to the Swedish Academy in 1929.
Ingegerd Beskow went after her studies for Carl Wilhelmsson at Valand Painting School between 1907 and 1909 to Paris, where she became a pupil of Henri Matisse and Maurice Denis.
Beskow was a skilled watercolour painter and also painted in oil in a muted black coloring. Between 1926 and 1950, she exhibited her art in several major Swedish cities. The motifs were often landscapes, drawn from cities such as Stockholm, Uppsala, Växjö and others.
Photography from 1943 at Växjö Gymnasium's 300 anniversary. The picture shows Ingegerd and (probably) Bishop's wife Brilioth on the way into the cathedral. Photo: Yngve Andersson / Culture Park Småland / Småland Museum.
Oil painting on canvas performed by Ingegerd in 1937. The painting depicts the Växjö Cathedral seen from Ingelstadsvägen, with the Karoliner house in front. Photo: The Culture Park Småland / Småland Museum.
Image description: Ingegerd Beskow paints on one of the paintings at the exhibition at Smålands Museum in 1944. Photo: Jan Erik Anderbjörk / kulturparken Småland / Smålands Museum. [The image is cropped] Click here for an uncropped image
Gurli Taube worked as an administrative assistant at the university Library, became librarian in 1944, first librarian in 1953 and director of Map and poster department.
Taube published a series of historical works, for example from an Uppsala of the past (1950) and A past Uppsala (1966).
Gurli Taube also wrote the cultural history texts in A photographic work of Uppsala (1954).
Image description: Gurli Taube when Gabriela Mistral came to visit, Uppsala 1945. Photo: Uppsala-Bild / Upplandsmuseet . [The image is cropped] Click here for an uncropped image
Gusten (Erik Gustaf) Widerbäck is Uppsala's and the plain of the province Uppland own artist, but he was born in southern Vi in Kalmar County.
He began to study music for Ruben Liljefors, but was by Rubens ' brother Bruno encouraged to devote himself to the oil painting that gave him support and help. Widerbäck received his formal education at the Art Academy 1899 and at the Swedish Artist Association's school 1900.
After the art studies in Stockholm, Widerbäck returned to the childhood city of Uppsala. Widerbäck moved in 1918 to Årsta just east of Uppsala and lived there until his death in 1970.
Throughout his career he depicted the plain and the city. Widerbäcks art is characterized by the mood of national romanticism and he dedicated his artistry to the plain, the trees and the houses.
Widerbäck spent a lot of time with Olof Thunman and Manne Ihran and had exhibitions in Uppsala, Gävle, Stockholm and Gothenburg.
Just before his death, he donated a large number of sketches, drawings, watercolours and gouaches to the Upplands Art Museum. Gusten Widerbäck is represented at the National Museum, Kalmar, Uppsala University Library and Uppsala Art Society.
Lithography. A view of the landscape – Uppsala from the south with Uppsala Castle and Uppsala Cathedral in the background. Gusten Widerbäck 1922. Photo: Olle Norling / Upplandsmuseet.
Gusten Widerbäck at work in Uppsala August 1958. Photo: Uppsala-Bild / Upplandsmuseet.
Svante Arrhenius was born at Wiks Castle outside Uppsala where his father was a trustee.
He was one of the foremost natural scientists of his time and received the first Swedish Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1903 for his efforts regarding the electrolytic Dissociation theory from 1887. It changed all the chemists perceptions of acids, bases and salts.
From the mid-1890s, Arrhenius's interest was extended to geophysics and cosmic physics. He regarded himself as a physicist, but his main findings mainly concerned chemistry.
From 1905, Arrhenius was the director of the Nobel Institute for Physical Chemistry (Academy) in the same year.
Also as a popular science writer, Arrhenius was internationally known among other things through the release of the development of the Worlds (1906), Man in the face of the World Riddle (1907), Smallpox and their suppression (1930), The Fates of the Stars (1915) and The chemistry and Modern Life (1919).
Rutger Sernander became Associate professor in Plant Geography 1895 and later professor of plant biology from 1908 to 1931.
His research areas included plant spreading biology, lichen biology, forestry research, dendrology, archaeology as well as the development of the climate and plant world in Scandinavia after the ice ages.
Sernander was an internationally recognized scientist, and his works include The spreading biology of the Scandinavian Vegetation (1901) and the Zur Morphologie der Diasporen (1927).
Sernander also wrote about important sites from a natural and cultural point of view. In particular, Uppland and old Uppsala, Rickebasta swamps, Flottsund and also the publication about Uppsala Kungsäng that Gustav Sandberg completed and published.
Sernander conducted an intense fight to preserve unique plant communities, such as Fiby Forest and Uppsala Kungsäng. The Platform for the conservation work was the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, which Sernander was a co-founder of in 1909, and was its chairman from 1917–1930.
Professor Sernander with students before 1944, Uppsala University. Photo: Paul Sandberg / Upplandsmuseet.
Professor Sernander at Upplands Ancient Monuments Association spring excursion, Uppland 1936. Photo: Paul Sandberg / Upplandsmuseet.
Adolf Nyman's father Anders Nyman started in 1873 a fine mechanical workshop at Dragarbrunns street 25 in Uppsala and started to repair bcycles with high front wheels in the 1880s.
The first bicycle was built in 1888 and can be considered Nymansbolagets first bicycle. After the death of the Adolf Nyman's father in 1889, the movement was taken over by his widow, who ceded the workshop to her sons Adolf and Janne, who began manufacturing bicycles of the brand Hermes and Crescent. The bicycle production developed into one of the city's largest industries.
The workshop that was made into a limited company 1889 with the name Nymans AB moved to the block at S:t Pers Street 28-30 and became one of Uppsala's largest industrial companies with 1500 employees in the 1950s.
In 1947 the name was changed to Nymansbolagen which 1960 merged with the the bicycle factory Monarch in Varberg. The factory in Uppsala closed down in 1963.
Group photo of the staff at AB Nyman's workshops in the early 1900s, taken with the factory in the background. Photo: Emil L:son Finn / Upplandsmuseet.
Bicycle assembly, AB Nyman's workshop, Noatun block, Uppsala 1939. Photography: Östlings Photography / Upplandsmuseet.
