Artist Biography: Julia Beck (1853-1935) was a prominent Swedish artist in Sweden and lived in France until her death in 1935.
She arrived in France in 1883 and joined the colony of Swedish painters established in Grez sur Loing, including Carl Larsson. Accompanied by her friend Karin Belgo (1859-1928), herself a painter who would become the future wife of Carl Larson, Julia Beck discovered a wild lake nature with very changing reflections and which inspired many compositions preserved today at the National Gallery in Stockholm.

Our painting represents Mother Moreau, a familiar figure in all painting in Grez sur Loing. Carl Larsson painted her in his vegetable garden and made several watercolors. Our portrait has just been published in the monograph, “La mère Moreau” by art historian Kaa Wennberg. The author after meticulous research, found many portraits of this brave peasant, notably by: Emma Lowstedt Charwick, Robert William Vonnoh, Frank O’Meara, Louis Welden Hawkins, John Lavery…

We are in the presence of a strong psychological study in which the complicity of Julia Beck with her model shines through, in an unusual palette of grays, pinks and juxtapositions with impressionist accents.