Sigurd Swane

Sigurd Swane (16 June 1879 – 9 April 1973) was a Danish painter and writer.

Swane was born in Frederiksberg. He studied in Copenhagen at the Royal Danish Academy of Art.

While in Paris in 1907, he was influenced by the work of the Fauves. On returning to Denmark, he painted a series of woodlands using greens, yellows and blues. His use of spots was soon replaced by more solid brushstrokes, with careful separation of colour, making him one of Denmark's foremost colourists.

His portraits are typified by wooded backgrounds as can be seen in the paintings of his brother Leo Swane (1908) and of Harald Giersing (1908).

He finally fulfilled his childhood dream of living in the country on a farm in Odsherred in the north-west of Zealand where he completed a series of light-filled landscape paintings. From 1947 he often painted in Portugal. He died, aged 93, in Grevinge.

His wife Christine Swane was also a painter, as was their son Lars Swane.