Elisabeth Bergstrand-Poulsen

Born on 12 November 1887 in the village of Långasjö in south-eastern Sweden, Anna Elisabeth Albertina Bergstrand was the daughter of the schoolteacher and organist Per Magnus Bergstrand (1855–1927) and Anna Hammargren (1861–1946), a devout Christian. She was the second of six children. Brought up in a musical family, her father taught her school subjects and the piano. As the family could not afford to send her to high school, she helped in the home and read widely. She became a close friend of , with whom she shared her interest in art and literature. After studying at the Kunsthögskolan in Stockholm (1909–1913), thanks to a Swedish grant she went on an extended study trip to France, Italy and Algeria (1913–1916). While in Rome, she met the sculptor Rikard Axel Poulsen (1887–1972) whom she married in November 1917 after returning to Denmark. They had two sons, Ivar (1918) and Hans (1920). ==Career==

As an artist She first exhibited her child paintings in Copenhagen's Charlottenborg at the 1922 autumn exhibition, followed by interiors at the 1923 spring show. Her portraits and interiors were painted in the naturalistic style of the times. Her artwork extended to etchings, lithography and ceramics. In 1926, her exhibition of some 60 illustrations depicting the people of Småland at the Gummeson Gallery in Stockholm met with enthusiastic acclaim. In 1950, she created an altarpiece for Långasjö Church but it was not inaugurated until 1957, two years after her death. Elisabeth Bergstrand-Poulsen died in Charlottenlund on 18 February 1955 and is buried in Ordrup Cemetery. ==References==