[From the catalogue-in-progress for “Landscapes & Livestock,” a loan exhibition for Agincourt Homecoming in the Fall of 2015]
SINCLAIR, Folke [1877–1956]
Farm in a Hilly Landscape
1931
oil on canvas / 7.5 inches by 9.5 inches
Swedish artist Folke Sinclair studied at Göteborg and several foreign countries before returning home, to become a painter of portraits and soft, romantic landscapes like “Farm in a Hilly Landscape.” The family name Sinclair suggests a Scottish emigration some generations earlier—not unheard in Scandinavia. He died at Malmö.
Biographies in English for Sinclair practically don’t exist, which makes the appearance here of his work all the more remarkable. In this case it was due to AFS, the foreign exchange program for high school students: the family of 1960s exchange student Beatrice Sundberg sent this as a Christmas gift to her Agincourt host family, Gerry and Myra Burke, whose own children bequeathed it to the Community Collection.
[…] collection is fortunate, indeed, to have acquired a second painting by Swedish artist Folke Sinclair. “Trädgrupp” (which we translate as “Group of […]
Being a relative of Folke Sinclair, I can share an explaination to his scottish surname. He was born Folke Andersson, a very common name in Scandinavia so he and his two brothers (one of which became my grandmothers father) decided to change their name for something more conspicuous. Why he choose the name of a scottish noble family is unknown to me but it may have helped him to build his impressive career as an painter