Hanna Hirsch-Pauli facts for kids

Hanna Hirsch-Pauli, a Swedish painter.

Portrait of Georg Pauli, painted around 1910.

Hanna Hirsch, later known as Hanna Pauli, was a talented Swedish painter. She was born in Stockholm on January 13, 1864. Hanna Pauli passed away on December 29, 1940, in Solna. She was best known for painting everyday scenes and detailed pictures of people, called portraits.

Life of a Painter

Hanna Hirsch was the daughter of Abraham Hirsch, who published music. She was good friends with another artist named Eva Bonnier. They both studied painting together at the school of August Malmström. After that, they attended the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm.

From 1885 to 1887, Hanna studied art in Paris at the Académie Colarossi. For some of that time, she shared an art studio with her friend Eva Bonnier. While in Paris, Hanna became close friends with other women artists from Nordic countries.

A Famous Portrait

In 1887, one of Hanna's paintings was accepted into the famous Paris Salon. This painting was a portrait of her Finnish artist friend, Venny Soldan. It is now kept at the Gothenburg Art Museum. The portrait was very realistic and unusual for its time. It showed a female artist working, sitting on the floor with clay in her hands. This was different from showing women in fancy clothes.

Venny Soldan's relaxed pose and expression were seen as showing the free lifestyle of Nordic women in Paris. Some people even called the portrait "bohemian," meaning unconventional.

Hanna Pauli described painting this portrait: "Our studio was very cold and damp. My Finnish friend had to wear a muff while I painted her. The dampness ran down the walls in the bedroom. We didn't worry much about money or comfort. My friend and I often wore slippers, which saved on shoe-leather and was very comfy."

Exhibitions and Style

Hanna Pauli won a medal for her art at the Exposition Universelle (1889) in Paris. This was a big world's fair. She also showed her work at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Her paintings were displayed at the Palace of Fine Arts there.

Like many Swedish artists of her time, Hanna's painting style was closer to the French juste milieu painters. This style was a middle ground between traditional art and newer styles. It was not as bold as the Impressionists. However, in her 1887 painting Frukostdags (Breakfast Time), she used thick paint. This showed specks of light on a white tablecloth. One art critic joked that she might have used the cloth to clean her brushes!

Family and Later Works

In 1887, Hanna married another painter, Georg Pauli. They traveled to Italy together for a year.

Hanna Pauli did not paint a huge number of works during her life. Most of her art was portraits. She often painted artists and writers who were friends with her and her husband. Some of these include a portrait of painter Karl Nordström (1890). She also painted writer Verner von Heidenstam as one of his book characters (1896). Another famous portrait is of writer Selma Lagerlöf (1932).

Hanna also painted a group portrait called Vänner (Friends) in 1907. This painting shows writer Ellen Key reading to a group of people at the Pauli family home.

In 2018, Hanna Pauli's work was featured in an art show called Women in Paris 1850-1900.

Gallery

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  Portrait of artist
  Venny Soldan, 1887.

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  Gerda, 1891

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  Breakfast Time, 1887

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  Verner von Heidenstam, 1896

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  Friends, 1900s

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  Hanna painted by her husband, Georg Pauli, 1896