Gösta Adrian-Nilsson or GAN (1884–1965), artist, grew up in Lund, attended art schools in Copenhagen. He created on several levels in addition to his painting, where poems and short stories were close to his heart. Distinction from many contemporary artists like e.g. Grünewald who went to Paris to take part in French art. Chosen GAN in turn chose to go to Berlin. From having been there in 1910s Berlin at gallery Der Sturm, where he met the form building of French Cubism, Italian Futurism's desire to show movement in images and German-Russian Expressionism. There were avant-gardists from several countries, including Picasso e.g. GAN studied the orientations of the different art styles and combined his impressions into a style all his own. His images from the 1910s are fragmented as in a kaleidoscope. GAN first came to Paris in 1920, where he got to know Fernand Léger. He successively developed geometrically stylized images. Everything is held together by the geometry of the composition, a framework built on sharp angles and tense curves. The motifs that are mainly relevant to GAN are masculine men: sportsmen, Indians and above all sailors.
