Nils Kreuger was born in the Swedish east-coast town of Kalmar in 1858 as the son of a ship owner.He and his wife Bertha were the first of the trio to move to Varberg, in 1887. Kreuger’s first canvases from Varberg are impressionist explorations of the light over the city, the sea and the countryside – as, for example, in his small 1889 painting ‘Hamnpiren i Varberg’ (‘The Harbour Pier in Varberg’).Kreuger is most well known for his landscape paintings that feature animals. In ‘Vid fästningsvallarna’ (‘Along the Fortress Walls’) from 1893, he depicts the local fortress in winter. At the foot of the fortress, locally produced mill wheels lie covered in snow. An old, black-clad woman carries a sack on her back, hunching forward. High up above, birds are blown about on the wind. Kreuger made several pencil sketches in preparation for the painting. None of them were actually done in wintertime, though! As paintings of snowy landscapes were so popular at the time, however, he adjusted his motif to cater to this trend. Even after he had relocated to Stockholm in 1896, the artist often spent his summers in Varberg. This exhibition charts his artistic development over a period of two decades, up until 1909.

©Hallands kulturhistoriska museum