Anders Montan

Anders Montan was a Swedish painter of dark interiors lit by fire, lamps and candles: old farmhouses, forges, barns, wine cellars, glassworks and steel mills. His industrial scenes, with glowing metal and workers in silhouette, are especially striking.

He was born in Scania in southern Sweden and studied in Copenhagen and Stockholm. In 1878 he moved to Düsseldorf, where he lived for the rest of his life and joined the Malkasten artists’ association. He spent many summers painting in the Lippe region of Germany, and the Lippisches Landesmuseum in Detmold holds some of his work.

His Armor-Plate Rolling Mill Krupp (1893) takes us inside a Krupp steelworks, and I Glashyttan (In the Glassworks) shows the same fascination with heat, fire and the people who work beside it.