A portrait of King Carl XVI Gustaf

A new portrait of Sweden’s Head of State has been added to the National Portrait Gallery. Thron Ullberg is the portrait photographer.

Marking the King’s 80th birthday, the Friends of the Nationalmuseum presented a new portrait of King Carl XVI Gustaf as a gift to the portrait collection.

The artist behind the portrait is photographer Thron Ullberg.

The artist and the portrait

Thron Ullberg is one of Sweden’s leading portrait photographers. His photographs have often been carefully staged, but there is nothing theatrical about his new portrait of King Carl XVI Gustaf. Instead, the portrait is respectful, simple and focused. All royal accessories have been set aside. We instead meet the sitter in civilian attire in the royal office, the setting where the monarch works and receives visitors.

Ullberg emphasises that he wanted to create an image that was neither staged nor contrived. For this reason, he chose to work exclusively with natural daylight.

The black-and-white portrait was created using a large-format camera and sheet film. Thron Ullberg says that this approach demands concentration from him, and the same is true of the sitter. The result is a portrait with a strong sense of presence, in which the King looks directly at us with a seriousness shaped by more than half a century as Sweden’s Head of State.

The Portrait Gallery

Gripsholm Castle in Mariefred has been home to the National Portrait Gallery since 1822, making it the world’s oldest national portrait gallery. Nationalmuseum has been responsible for the collection since 1881. It includes portraits dating from the late 15th century to the present day, in a variety of media. The portraits are displayed both in the castle’s historic interiors and in dedicated portrait galleries.

Top image: photomontage, Thron Ullberg's portrait of the King / The gallery on the third floor at Gripsholm Castle, photo Lisa Raihle Rehbäck