Collection: August Strindberg

Johan August Strindberg (1849–1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, and painter. Born in Stockholm, he trained briefly at Uppsala University in 1867 before abandoning formal studies to work as a journalist, librarian, and telegraph operator.

Between 1870 and 1912, he wrote over sixty plays and thirty works of fiction, autobiography, and cultural critique, including "The Red Room" (1879) and "Miss Julie" (1888). His adoption of Émile Zola’s naturalist principles in the 1880s challenged conventional dramatic structures in European theatre.

Strindberg’s paintings, created between 1892 and 1905, focused on psychological intensity and symbolic abstraction. Using oil and watercolor, he developed a gestural technique to depict seascapes, storm clouds, and urban scenes, often conveying existential unease. His visual work aligned with his literary experiments, employing thick impasto and tenebrist lighting. "August Strindberg" (1896), a self-portrait in the Art Institute of Chicago, demonstrates these methods.

Strindberg’s work extended beyond writing to include alchemy, photography, and painting. His later plays, such as "A Dream Play" (1902) and "The Ghost Sonata" (1907), abandoned linear narrative for dream logic, influencing German Expressionism and the Theatre of the Absurd. Though his paintings were rarely exhibited during his lifetime, they have since been studied for their engagement with abstraction and psychological symbolism.