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Wednesday, December 12, 2012

My Dad's portraits in pastel

My Dad did an amazing job of creating portraits of my maternal grandparents and paternal great grandparents. He worked in pastel and drew from old photographs. It helped that we had professional photographers on both sides of the family even in the early days of photography.

I recently received photos of three of his works. If only I could be as good an artist as he was!

 My maternal grandmother who's middle name, Juhlin, which is her mother's maiden name became my first name. Quite the stylish 1920's look isn't it?

One of my paternal great grandfathers who was a professional photographer and artist himself. My Dad must have inherited the genes from him!

His wife who looks the most similar to me of all the ancestors for whom we have photos. One of my nephews initially thought it was a portrait of me in period dress!

7 comments:

  1. Those are all so beautiful. What wonderful heirlooms. Who has the originals now?

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    1. My Mom has them all at this time. There are 3 more - my maternal grandfather and the other set of paternal great grandparents. He did my Mom's parents instead of her grandparents because both of her parents died when she was a child. I don't know how my brother and I will divide them up when my Mom dies but since I don't have any of my Dad's work I am sure I will get some.

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  2. So exciting that you have these...they are excellent. What a treasure!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Pam. He was quite talented and really returned to his art in retirement.

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  3. These are wonderful. Your maternal grandmother is adorable. And I love the story of your name.

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  4. Thank you so much! It warms my heart to have others appreciate his work. And it has been unique to have a Swedish last name as a first name.

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  5. Soo beautiful! He was very talented!! What a gift! :)

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