Peter David Edstrom

Edstrom was born in Hvetlanda, Sweden on March, 27, 1873.

Edstrom came to the U.S. in 1880 with his family and studied sculpture with Johannes Scheiwe in Ottumwa, Iowa.

The story goes that he worked as a news boy until he was old enough to work in a slaughter house, where is saw half naked men and was inspired to draw them. Eventually with his mother's blessings he went to the train tracks and took a journy to New York in a for that took forty hours, locked in a hay box.

At age twenty he lived in the West, but desirous of pursuing an artistic career, he returned to his native country and began his studies at the Stockholm Academy, and then in Paris under Injalbert.  While in Europe he worked with his associates of the Konstnarsforbimdet at the Berlin Secession in 1910, and after in Stockholm and Amsterdam, having held that summer in Amsterdam with an important collective exhibition conjointly with his countryman, Carl Larsson.

In about 1920 he settled in Los Angeles and worked mostly on portrait commissions.

In 1937 his autobiography, Testament of Caliban, was published. Edstrom died in Los Angeles on Aug. 12, 1938.

Exhibitions: Louisiana Purchase Expo (St Louis), 1904 (silver medal); San Francisco Museum of Art, 1935.

Collections: Victoria and Albert Museum; (London), National Museum and Royal Palace (Stockholm); Masonic Temple (Washington, DC); Lincoln Park (LA); Laguna Honda Hospital (SF); Dallas, TX (statues).] P&S; International Studio, Jan. 1920; AAA 1929-33; WWAA 1936-39; SCA;

LA Times, 8-14-1938 obituary.