STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN.- The Nationalmuseum presents Collections in focus: Zorn's Men, on view through February 26, 2006. The Nationalmuseum's large collections of engravings contain an almost complete suite of Zorn's etchings. The exhibition Zorn's Men shows the greater part of his portrait engravings of male sitters as well as a small number of genre paintings. The exhibition aims to illustrate the artist's skill as a portraitist and to give a picture of male roles and ideals in the decades around 1900.

Anders Zorn (1860–1920) was one of the leading Swedish artists of his day and he enjoyed considerable international success. Portraiture was an important part of his career as a painter. Portrait commissions not only brought in money but they also gave him the opportunity to establish new contacts, to extend his network and to gain a reputation among people who might give him commissions or purchase paintings. Among the subjects that he chose to portray, or who commissioned portraits from him, we find men and women of all ages, from the farming folk of Mora in Dalarna where he grew up to heads of state, financiers and people from an international cultural elite.

All his life, Zorn maintained a special affection for the province Dalarna, following many years of travel accompanied by Emma Lamm, he finally settled in 1896. Zorn's paintings of Dalarna typically portray a farming culture that, at the time, was in the process of disappearing. With his art Zorn helped to maintain the picture of Dalarna as an especially genuine and original part of Sweden. Exhibition curator: Ph D Merit Laine, curator Collection of Prints and Drawings.