Portrait commissions

Urban Larsson is widely seen as one of the foremost portrait painters in northern Europe. His portraits are distuingished by strong characterization, sense of life and depth. For the last thirty years he has pursued his passion of painting portrait commissions and they are numerous and prestigious.​ Through his working methods Larsson is directly linked to the great portrait painters of the past. As a contemporary painter working sight-size, whereby the canvas and sitter are placed side by side and viewed at a distance to perceive the whole, his portraits are painted life-size or to the scale of life. He prepares his materials and paint using the time-tested techniques of previous centuries.

Portraits are done from life through sittings and not from photographs. His dedication to working from life stems from the conviction that in order to paint a portrait with a sense of life you need to have the person in front of you; when working from a photograph, you are imitating an imitation which is not reality itself. Each sitting lasts about 2-3 hours (with several breaks) and a portrait requires 6-10 sittings depending on size. The price for a life-size portrait commission in charcoal starts at €3.000 and for a portrait in oil at €12.000. For more details and information on prices, please contact Urban Larsson.

Seen below is a selection of his portrait commissions. If you wish to receive a complete list, please send us an email.