Ann Mari Sjögren
Encyclopedia
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
and illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
.
Sjögren was raised in Nyhamnsläge, a small Swedish fishing community. The younger of two sisters. Her artistic heritage can be traced to her mother who was very conscious of colours, and her father who, in later years spent his time carving figures in wood. She was educated as a commercial artist at Reklamkonstskolan in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, and later worked at Kärnan publishers in Helsingborg
Helsingborg
Helsingborg is a city and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 97,122 inhabitants in 2010. Helsingborg is the centre of an area in the Øresund region of about 320,000 inhabitants in north-west Scania, and is Sweden's closest point to Denmark, with the Danish city...
, at a time when they started to publish children’s books. She has been painting fairies for as long as she can remember. Every piece of paper that she found became a little work of art.
Her first book, En dag i Älvriket was published just after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in 1945. Three years later it was translated into English as “A Day in Fairy Land”. It was published in ten different languages. It remains a highly collectible antique publication that influenced many post war baby boom
Baby boom
A baby boom is any period marked by a greatly increased birth rate. This demographic phenomenon is usually ascribed within certain geographical bounds and when the number of annual births exceeds 2 per 100 women...
children. An editorial from an American paper of that time shows the famous actress and film star Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
, reading from A Day in Fairy Land for her four adopted children.
She went on to teach adults in painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, croquis or batik
Batik
Batik is a cloth that traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. Batik or fabrics with the traditional batik patterns are found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, China, Azerbaijan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and Singapore.Javanese traditional batik, especially from...
. Her many books like Lill, foundling of the animals and The Princess and the Pirate
The Princess and the Pirate
The Princess and the Pirate is a 1944 American comedy film released by Samuel Goldwyn, starring Bob Hope and Virginia Mayo. This was the only appearance in a Goldwyn film by Paramount Pictures star Hope.-Plot:...
Wedding Bells in Fairyland were sold worldwide.
In her 88th year, she enjoyed a comeback as fairy nostalgia swept the world as a new art movement, her work being published with modern fantasy masters Brian Froud
Brian Froud
Brian Froud is an English fantasy illustrator. He lives and works in Devon with his wife, Wendy Froud, who is also a fantasy artist...
in The Art of Faery and Alan Lee in The World of Faery and in 500 Fairy Motifs by Myrea Pettit
Myrea Pettit
Myrea Pettit is an English fantasy and fairy artist and illustrator born in Northampton. She studied with famed Swedish illustrator Ann Mari Sjogren painting flowers, butterflies and fairies like Tinkerbell from Peter Pan....
.
Works published in following books
- The Art of Faery (2003), written by David Riché,
- The World of Faery (2005), written by David Riché,
- 500 Fairy Motifs (2005), written by Myrea Pettit,