After studying at the Higher School of Industrial Arts and the Scuola di tessitura in Milan, Greta Gahn was the director and artistic director of Handarbetets Vänner between 1931 and 1951.
During the war years and the time after, it was mainly Gahn in collaboration with Alf Munthe who was responsible for the monumental textile art in churches and public buildings.
She was also a co-owner with Munthe of Lekattgården, a workshop for weaving and embroidery. Greta Gahn's artistic judgment and technical expertise were crucial to Munthe's textile works.
Image description: Greta Gahn, unknown year. Photo: Margit Karlson / Leksand local history archive. Leksands-kulturhusThe image is cropped] Click here for an uncropped image
Maj Bring grew up in Uppsala on Sysslomansgatan 8 and later on Skolgatan. She studied at Vilhelmsson's painting school in Gothenburg and at the Academy of Fine Arts and for Henri Matisse in Paris 1908-1910.
Bring herself ran an art school in Söder in Stockholm and was chairman of the Association of Swedish Women Artists between 1949 and 1951. Bring painted landscapes in a modernist style and later worked with collage and sequined paintings.
Her autobiography Motsols (1986) has been reissued with a large number of images from her oeuvre. The book describes Maj Brings' artistic life and her encounters with her contemporaries and her time in Paris. The new edition has been published by Maj Brings Fonds
Works of art by Maj Bring are represented at Moderna Museet, Nationalmuseum, Sahlströmsgården in Torsby, Aguelimuseet in Sala, Per Ekström museum in Mörbylånga and Borås museum.
In 2008, several artists were honored by having streets and parks in Stockholm named after them. In Sköndal, Maj Bring is represented.
Image description: Maj Bring, 1904. Photo: Taken from the book Maj Bring - Motsols. Memoirs and Art. 2007The image is cropped]. Click here for an uncropped image
Otto von Friesen was born in Kulltorps parish, Jönköping county, and his most important scientific works deal with runic writing.
In 1897 von Friesen became an associate professor of Nordic languages at Uppsala University.
He published Om runskrifts härkomst (1906) and Rökstenen (1920), in which he claimed that the enigmatic stone is about a conflict between Ostrogoths and Frisian merchants.
During the years 1905-1936, von Friesen was a professor of Swedish language, became a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1928 and was elected to the Swedish Academy in 1929.
After studying under Carl Wilhelmsson at the Valand School of Painting from 1907 to 1909, Ingegerd Beskow traveled to Paris, where she became a student of Henri Matisse and Maurice Denis.
Beskow was a skilled watercolorist and also painted in oil in a muted, black color. Between 1926 and 1950 she exhibited her art in several major Swedish cities. The motifs were often landscapes, taken from cities such as Stockholm, Uppsala, Växjö and others.
Photo from 1943 at Växjö upper secondary school's 300th anniversary. The picture shows Ingegerd Beskow and (probably) Bishop Brilioth on their way into the cathedral. Photo: Yngve Andersson / Kulturparken Småland / Smålands museum.
Oil painting on canvas by Ingegerd Beskow in 1937. The painting depicts the then Växjö Cathedral seen from Ingelstadsvägen, with Karolinerhuset in front. Photo: Kulturparken Småland / Smålands museum.
Image description: Ingegerd Beskow painting on one of the paintings at an exhibition at Småland 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 a typist at the university library, became a librarian in 1944, head librarian in 1953 and head of the maps and plans department.
Taube published a number of historical works, such as Från gångna tiders Uppsala (1950) and Ett svunnet Uppsala (1966).
Gurli Taube was also responsible for the cultural history texts in Ett bildverk om 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 an artist from Uppsala and the Uppland plain, although he was born in Södra Vi in Kalmar County.
He began studying music under Ruben Liljefors, but was encouraged to devote himself to oil painting by Ruben's brother Bruno, who gave him support and help. Widerbäck received his formal training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1899 and at the Artists' Association School in 1900.
After studying art in Stockholm, Widerbäck returned to his childhood town of Uppsala. Widerbäck moved to Årsta, just east of Uppsala, in 1918 and lived there until his death in 1970.
Throughout his 70-year career as an artist, he depicted the plains and the city. Widerbäck's art is characterized by the mood painting of National Romanticism, and he paid lyrical attention to the plains, trees and houses.
Widerbäck spent a lot of time with Olof Thunman and Manne Ihran and had exhibitions in Uppsala, Gävle, Stockholm and Gothenburg.
Shortly before his death, he donated a large number of sketches, drawings, watercolors and gouaches to Upplands konstmuseum. Gusten Widerbäck is represented at the National Museum, in Kalmar, Uppsala University Library and Uppsala Art Association.
Lithograph. Landscape view - 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 in August 1958. Photo: Uppsala-Bild / Upplandsmuseet.
Svante Arrhenius was born at Wik Castle outside Uppsala, where his father was a steward.
He was one of the foremost natural scientists of his time and was the first Swede to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1903 for his work on the electrolytic dissociation theory from 1887. It completely changed chemists' understanding of acids, bases and salts.
From the mid-1890s, Arrhenius' interests expanded to geophysics and cosmic physics. He considered himself a physicist but his main discoveries were mainly in chemistry.
From 1905 Arrhenius was the director of the Nobel Institute for Physical Chemistry, established by the Academy of Sciences in the same year.
Arrhenius also became internationally known as a popular science writer through the publication of The Evolution of Worlds (1906), Man in the Face of the World Riddle (1907), Smallpox and its Control (1930), The Fate of the Stars (1915) and Chemistry and Modern Life (1919).
Image description: Svante Arrhenius, year unknown. Photo: Unknown photographer / Tekniska Museet. [The image is cropped] Click here for an uncropped image
Rutger Sernander became associate professor of plant geography in 1895 and later professor of plant biology from 1908 to 1931.
His research areas included plant distribution biology, lichen biology, forestry, dendrology, archaeology, and the development of climate and plant life in Scandinavia after the ice ages.
Sernander was an internationally recognized scientist and among his works are Den skandinaviska vegetationens spridningsbiologi (1901) and Zur Morphologie der Diasporen (1927).
Sernander also wrote about important places from a natural and cultural point of view. In particular, he wrote about Uppland and Gamla Uppsala, Rickebasta träsk, Flottsund and also the book about Uppsala Kungsäng, which Gustav Sandberg completed and published.
Sernander led an intense struggle to preserve unique plant communities, such as Fiby primeval forest and Uppsala Kungsäng. The platform for nature conservation work became the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, which Sernander helped to found in 1909, and was its chairman from 1917-1930.
Professor Sernander with students before 1944, Uppsala University. Photo: Paul Sandberg / Upplandsmuseet.
Professor Sernander on Upplands fornminnesförenings spring excursion, Uppland 1936. Photo: Paul Sandberg / Upplandsmuseet.
Adolf Nyman's father Anders Nyman started a precision engineering workshop in 1873 at Dragarbrunnsgatan 25 in Uppsala and began repairing bicycles with high front wheels in the 1880s.
The first bicycle was built in 1888 and can be considered the Nymans company's first bicycle. After the father's death in 1889, the business was taken over by his widow, who handed over the workshop to her sons Adolf and Janne, who began manufacturing Hermes and Crescent bicycles. Bicycle manufacturing developed into one of the city's largest industries.
The workshop, which was converted into a limited company in 1889 under the name Nymans verkstäder AB, moved to the block at S:t Persgatan 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 in 1960 merged with the Monark bicycle factory in Varberg. Operations in Uppsala ceased 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.
Assembly of bicycles, AB Nymans Verkstäder, Noatun block, Uppsala 1939. Photo: Östlings foto / Upplandsmuseet.
