Gunnar Widforss  Gunnar Mauritz Widforss (October 21, 1879 – November 30, 1934) was a Swedish American artist who specialized in painting subjects from the wilderness in watercolor. Widforss is most frequently associated with landscapes from American National Parks. Gunnar Widforss was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He was the son of Mauritz Widforss and Blenda Carolina Weydenhayn, who were the parents of thirteen children. Mauritz Widforss (1836-1905) owned a hunting apparel retailer bearing his name, which in 1968 was acquired by Erling Persson to form Hennes & Mauritz (H&M). Widforss' mother was an amateur artist who had studied at the Technical Institute, now Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design. At the age of sixteen Widforss began his studies of painting at the same school. Following the completion of his studies at the Technical Institute in 1900, Widforss traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia to work as an apprentice decorative painter. He returned home a year-and-a-half later and then embarked on an extended period of travel around Europe and America. Widforss worked primarily in watercolor and he led a bohemian lifestyle traveling in search of great landscapes to paint. Between 1904 and 1909 he ventured to Austria, Switzerland, the Mediterranean region and North Africa. From 1906 to 1907 he visited the United States where he resided in Jacksonville, Florida and later Brooklyn, New York doing odd jobs and paintings on commission. Soon after arriving in California in early 1921, Widforss made his way to Yosemite Valley. He made it his semi-regular home from 1926-1929. It was in Yosemite that he met National Park Service director Stephen T. Mather in 1922. Mather became a friend and patron and suggested that Widforss focus his talents on America's National Parks. In 1923 Widforss illustrated Harold Symmes book "Songs of Yosemite." By the late summer of 1921 he had consigned his watercolors to San Francisco's Gump Gallery and was painting and exhibiting in Carmel. Thereafter he had successful exhibitions in: Los Angeles at the Stendahl Galleries and the California Water Color Society; the East Bay at the Oakland Art Gallery and Hotel Oakland; and San Francisco at the Rabjohn & Morcom Gallery and habitually at Gump's.