Pehr Hilleström
Swedish, 1732 – 1816
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Pehr Hilleström was a Swedish artist. He served as a professor and director at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts.
Hilleström was born on the island of Väddö in the district of Roslagen, Sweden where his uncle who was the vicar. He was the eldest of twelve children. He was first trained by landscape artist Johan Philip Korn (1727–1796). He received training at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts from artist Guillaume Taraval (1701–1750) and architect Jean Eric Rehn (1717–1793).
Hilleström painted some thirty portraits. He also performed a large number of depictions from the environments of the time. He produced numerous genre paintings of people performing various daily tasks inside upper- and middle-class homes in Stockholm. Dresses and furniture were painted exactly the way they looked and provide a valuable source of information about what life was like in those days. In addition to this, he painted craftsmen in action at mills and other early industrial workplaces. In later years, he also began to paint historic paintings and religious motives.
