Carte de Visite - No 1. Berta Hallgren
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll have seen that in February, I posted about a small photography bundle that I had purchased from a second hand shop in Gamla Stan, Stockholm. My haul consisted of five carte de visite and a Christmas issue of the magazine Femina from 1955, bought solely because of the fantastic Jul Bord (Christmas table) photography. I scanned them on my next day off and when reviewing the collection, I realised two of the cards I had bought were made by two different women owned photography studios! As it is Women’s History Month, what better way to end it with a dive into the histories of these photographers! When I started researching however, I ended up finding more information than anticipated so have decided to split this up into two parts! I wanted to do this a little different to the biographies and such that I have seen on other blogs, by giving you a look at the way I work. So it will be a bit of a long post as you join me on how I go about doing a short research into the cards!
Berta Hallgren - Mora - Leksand
1876-1960
Carte de Visite No.1 , Purchased in Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Sweden
This first card drew my attention due to the simplicity and clarity of the portrait. The image is a simple head shot of a woman wearing Swedish Folk dress also known as folkdräkt. Her dark hair is kept back and covered with a kerchief. Over her shirt sits a decorative shawl with a broach clasped in the middle. The shawl is tucked into her bodice, fastened with patterned ribbon. The image sits on a dark brown card with the studio’s name and location embossed underneath. On the back there is no studio stamp to be found.
The initial information I came across when researching Berta Hallgren was her biographical entry in Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon (SKBL). Basically every Swedish information source is completely new to me so I always have to scrutinise the reliability of what I’m reading! This website provides “free access to 2000 biographies of women who actively contributed to Swedish society.” Each entry has been written by “experts and researchers” with this particular biography written by Christer Bergin. Turns out he is the former photo antiquarian at Dalarna's museum (the region where Berta Hallgren was based!) and actually wrote a book entitled “Fotografer i Dalarna” based on the 30 years of knowledge gained working at the museum! So we are in good hands!
Berta Hallgren was a photographer born in the city of Västervik in 1876, Sweden. In 1901, she became a photographic assistant to Karl Strömbäck, then in 1910, Hallgren moved to Mora where she took over the studio of K.G. Wiborgh. He moved to Karlstad in the same year so it is safe to assume she took over the business upon moving to Mora. She later opened a second studio in Leksand in 1916 which she ran until 1925, and continued running her Mora studio until 1939. As well as portrait and wedding photography, Hallgren also produced advertising images, every day life in the Mora region, church photography and specialsied in postcard images.
Berta Hallgren, taken from the Mora bygdearkiv facebook page from their International Women’s Day post March 8th 2019. Photo from their archival collection
When diving into a little more research regarding Hallgren, I came across a network of Swedish female photographers associated with her, some of which had biographies on the SKBL; some of which had a bit more information about her, her studio and her practise. Hallgren was said to be a good teacher and had had three different female apprentices as well as being an apprentice herself to photographer Gerda Söderlund. Hallgren had actually purchased the Leksand studio from Söderlund and later sold it to Margit Karlsson, one of her apprentices. Ruth Zaida Elisabet Hellman and Selma Kristina Westberg were her other students and I will link their bios under the blog post for you all to have a look as they are very rich in information and really worth a read if you’re interested in Swedish Photo History!
Anyway, back to the card! I wanted to find out a little more about this portrait so I started with the card itself. As both the words “Mora” and “Leksand” are found embossed on the front of, it is safe to date it from between 1916-1925 approximately. There are cards with only “Berta Hallgren, Mora'' on them and later cards can be found with “Bertha Hallgrens Eftr.” (sucessor) that were used by Margit Karlsson after she took over the Leksand studio. I’m not a textiles or fashion historian but when looking into the sitter’s attire, I found out there were/are hundreds of different kinds of folkdräkt around Sweden, varying from region to region, which each area having a number of different kinds (not to mention Samedräkt/Sami costume!). I have placed the sitters costume as being traditional folk dress of the Dalarna Country, which is unsurprising as Hallgren’s studios were located within the region. To me this suggested this was a local woman, or so I thought! In the biographical entry of Margit Karlsson, it is said that when she took over the Leksand studio that she also “had also taken over all of Gerda Söderlund’s local Leksand costumes and many tourists wanted to be photographed wearing local dress.” I do not know if this was something Hallgren owned before Karlsson so I cannot determine if the sitter is local or a tourist! (A funny anecdote I came across was about Karlssons’ photography assistant and cousin, Knis Anna Lundblad. She would help dress sitters for their portraits and sometimes “would be left in the darkroom, without a skirt or her shoes as she had had to lend them to a client if none of the existing items fitted”).
Although I couldn’t find out much more about the sitter herself, I came across the Mora Bygdearkiv, the village archive which holds thousands of Berta Hallgren’s images, many of which (if not all, I am unsure) have been digitised and are ready to view on their digital image archive. It reveals the vastness of her subject matter ranging from portraits, weddings, day to day life, buildings, landscapes and object recording. I love using objects as a starting point for research because even if I don’t find much out about the sitter or the image content, I can still find out an even richer wealth of information. The photographic object has already helped me find out so much about Swedish history that I didn’t know. The histories of costume, regions, photography and women’s history! I have found new archival resources, research resources and a glimpse into the type of photographs being made from early 20th century Sweden.
Picture no: BH 21534: Photographer: Hallgren Berta, Portrait theater company, http://bygdearkivet.mora.se/blanketter/CgiText-GetRecord?Table=fg_Foton&ID=82626&Formname=/blanketter/foto.HTML&Incl=0000000000000&Recnr=1
Associated Female Photographers:
Gerda Augusta Söderlund https://skbl.se/en/article/GerdaAugustaSoderlund
Selma Kristina Westberg https://skbl.se/en/article/SelmaKristinaWestberg
Margit Elisabet Karlsson https://skbl.se/en/article/MargitElisabetKarlsson
Ruth Zaida Elisabet Hellman (no bio available)
Quotes taken from both:
Berta Hallgren, www.skbl.se/sv/artikel/BertaHallgren, Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon (article by Christer Bergin), retrieved 2022-03-18.
Margit Elisabet Karlsson, www.skbl.se/sv/artikel/MargitElisabetKarlsson, Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon (article by Christer Bergin), retrieved 2022-03-24.
Mora Bygdearkiv - http://bygdearkivet.mora.se/listor/cgitext-list?ID=1396375854&start=1
I also came across this interesting collection of Carte de Visite which was decidated to children and horse toys. It included a card by Berta Hallgren but also a Cardiff based studio called The Art Portrait Company on Charles Street.
http://www.maartjedenie.nl/verzameling%20005%20CDV%2003%20-%2002%20kids%20toys%20horses%2001.html (The website itself seems to be a private collection of loads and loads of historical images that have been scanned and uploaded!)