Figure in a Carriage

An evocative semi-abstract mid-century modernist figurative painting executed in oil onto canvas by Swedish artist Eric Elfvén (1921–2008), whose works have been exhibited in public collections including the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Jönköping Museum, Borås Art Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. 

The composition captures the fleeting impression of a lone passenger illuminated by an unseen light source- perhaps the outside world glimpsed through a carriage window.

The painting is semi-abstract, with blocks of textured pigment forming the suggestion of a figure framed by architectural shapes that recall the interior of a carriage.

The palette is a masterful interplay of deep browns, blackened greens, and oxblood reds, punctuated by soft corals, pale peach, and a sliver of white that slices the darkness like a beam of light. Heavy impasto brushwork adds physical depth, while the confident horizontal and vertical strokes convey the structure of motion and confinement.

There’s a poetic stillness to the work – an intimate moment caught in transit, abstracted through modernist sensibility yet rich in narrative potential.

Size: 36.5 x 52.5 cm (including frame)