Jenny Nyström

Jenny Nyström is known as the illustrator of the controlling and setting plot in Viktor Rydberg's story of Little Vigg's adventure on Christmas Eve. She also gave a face to the kind Christmas gift-giving Santa who appears in various magazines in Sweden from the 1880s until his death. She was very productive as an illustrator and there are thousands of pictures she has painted.

The permanent exhibition about Jenny Nyström shows her artistic life. It highlights her versatility regarding academic painting, portraits, book, reportage, card and newspaper illustrations.

About Jenny Nyström and her art

She had a solid academic education both from the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and from Académie Colarossi and Académie Julian in Paris.

Jenny Nyström portrays the children's world with warmth and empathy and she believed herself, "that it was because she always loved children and that she remembered her happy childhood in the idyllic city of Kalmar all her life."

She was a well-educated professional woman at a time when it was considered that the woman's main task was to take care of the home and family. She had that too. She married on 24 May 1887 with med.kand. Daniel Stoopendaal (1853-1927). They had a son, Curt, who was born on June 25, 1893 in Stockholm and died on July 27, 1965 in the same city. Jenny lived through her time. In order to be able to concentrate on painting, she had help at home from her mother's cousin, Karin (or Carin) Johansdotter, born in 1839 in Kristvalla parish in Kalmar county and died in Stockholm in 1932. She came to the Nyström family in Kalmar, already when Jenny were children. She accompanied them in 1863, when they moved to Gothenburg. When Jenny herself started a family, Karin came to her in Stockholm and helped with the care of her son Curt, when he was a child. "Mom does not have time, she must not be disturbed in any way," Curt said.

Jenny Nyström wanted to give children and adults a glimpse of the beautiful country east of the sun and west of the moon, which her mother told about in the tales Jenny heard during her childhood years in Kalmar. She succeeded. When Jenny turned one, it is said that she received bags of mail from children who wanted to court the kind aunt on her birthday.