Svante Lagergrén

Svante Lagergrén (1844–1900) was born in Halmstad, Sweden in 1844. His merchant father left the family in the 1850′s and his mother was left to support her four children with a meagre teacher’s salary. Svante was four years old when he became deaf. The artistically talented boy got an apprenticeship in a portrait painter’s studio in the hometown, Halmstad. At the age of 13, Svante was sent to Manilla School in Stockholm where he learned, next to the school subjects, carpentry.

Background

Svante Lagergrén was born in Halmstad, Sweden in 1844. His merchant father left the family in the 1850′s and his mother was left to support her four children with a meagre teacher’s salary. Svante was four years old when he became deaf. The artistically talented boy got an apprenticeship in a portrait painter’s studio in the hometown, Halmstad. At the age of 13, Svante was sent to Manilla School in Stockholm where he learned, next to the school subjects, carpentry.

Lagergrén, the Photographer

In 1871, Svante Lagergrén moved to Finland and got a place as a carpenter’s apprentice in Turku Deaf School, under Deaf Herman Fonselius. The work was hard and Svante started to look for other means of livelihood.

Fritz Hirn, then a teacher in Turku school, offered his help. He had got a spark for photography from his own teacher, C. O. Malm, and had worked as a photographer in Helsinki before his career as a teacher. Now he started to teach photography to Svante.

With the basic skills acquired, Svante got apprenticeships with photographers in Turku and Helsinki. In the mid 1870′s he already founded his own atelier in Tampere, which was the first of its kind in town.

An announcement from 1876 tells that the Svante Lagergrén atelier was located close to the Tampere market square and was open every day from nine to four. The business included photography, copying and enlarging old photos and paintings but especially famous Svante was from his landscape photos. His clientele included all ranks of society from bank managers and merchant’s wives to servants and weavers. The Lagergrén atelier worked in Tampere without competition until 1879. In 1881, Svante was already wealthy enough to marry brewery owner’s daughter Anna Wilhelmina Muhr. Svante Lagergrén worked in Tampere for about 15 years. Later he practised photography e.g. in Hanko and Pori.