Ansgar Almquist

Born in Säby parish, now part of Tranås Municipality, to sales clerk Gustav Almquist and Augusta Åhman, Almquist was raised in the village of Åsen went to work for a furniture company when he was 14.{{cite web |title=Ansgar Almqvist |url=https://stockholmslansmuseum.se/ansgar-almqvist/ |website=Stockholm County Museum |access-date=3 August 2022 |language=sv}} In 1908 he began studying at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm; he continued in 1909 under the painter Carl Wilhelmson at Valand Academy in Gothenburg, and starting in 1910 in Paris, at the Académie Colarossi under Jean Antoine Injalbert and the École des Beaux-Arts.{{cite web |url=https://www.signaturer.se/Sverige/AnsgarAlmquist.htm |title=Ansgar Almquist |website=Stämplar & Signaturer |language=sv |access-date=3 August 2022 }} After the First World War, he returned to Europe in the 1920s on study tours in England, France, Germany and Italy.

Almquist established his studio in Stockholm. He received a number of commissions for public art, including for Stockholm City Hall (four sculptures for the courtyard façade), the Gothenburg Museum of Art, and the Stockholm Concert Hall (staircase sculptures and the lights and columns in the main hall),{{cite web |url=https://www.konserthuset.se/en/about-us/the-building/entrance-and-foyers/ |title=Entrance and Foyers |website=Konserthuset Stockholm |access-date=3 August 2022 }}{{cite web |title=The Main Hall |url=https://www.konserthuset.se/en/about-us/the-building/the-main-hall/ |website=Konserthuset Stockholm |access-date=3 August 2022}} and also executed sculptures in wood for the interior of {{SS|Kungsholm}} of the Holland America Line; Venus is now held by {{ill|Sjöfartsmuseet Akvariet|sv}} in Gothenburg.{{cite news |last1=Anderssen |first1=Ollie |title=Sjöfartsmuseet inreder med Venus |url=https://www.gp.se/kultur/kultur/sjöfartsmuseet-inreder-med-venus-1.986163 |access-date=3 August 2022 |newspaper=Goteborgs-Posten |date=10 February 2010}} He exhibited frequently with the Swedish Association of Artists, and individually in Tranås in 1930 and in Norrköping in 1944. From 1931 to 1938 he taught at the Högre konstindustriella skolan in Stockholm and from 1945 at its successor, Konstfack.

His life-size bronze Gångaren (Race Walker) was part of the sculpture event in the art competition at the 1936 Summer Olympics.{{cite web|url=https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/921329 |title=Ansgar Almquist |work=Olympedia |access-date=18 August 2020}}

Almquist married Sigrid Maria Löfgren in 1916. He died in 1973 in {{ill|Lidingö (town)|lt=Lidingö|sv|Lidingö (tätort)}} on the island of the same name.

File:Stadshuset Olof Skötkonung Olaus Petri.jpg (left) and Olaus Petri (right) at Stockholm City Hall]]

Eriksbergs museum in Tranås exhibits a collection of his sculptures and some of the contents from his studio,{{cite web |url=http://www.tranas.se/upplevagora/kultur/museer/eriksbergsmuseum.6601.html |title=Eriksbergs museum |website=Tranås kommune |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210618004036/http://www.tranas.se/upplevagora/kultur/museer/eriksbergsmuseum.6601.html |archive-date=18 June 2021 |language=sv }} and works by him have also been shown at Moderna Museet and Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and at the {{ill|Norrköping Art Museum|sv|Norrköpings konstmuseum}} and the Gothenburg Museum of Art.

• Gångaren (Race Walker, 1936), Tidaholm
• Carl Linnaeus (1938), Lund
• Damen i dammen (1959), Skara{{cite news |url=https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/kommunala-statyer-stulna-tjuvarna-annu-pa-fri-fot |title=Kommunala statyer stulna – tjuvarna ännu på fri fot |publisher=SVT |date=4 July 2018 |access-date=3 August 2022 |language=sv }}

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Category:1889 births

Category:1973 deaths

Category:20th-century Swedish sculptors

Category:20th-century Swedish male artists

Category:Swedish male sculptors

Category:Art competitors at the 1936 Summer Olympics

Category:People from Tranås Municipality