Ulrika Pasch

Ulrika "Ulla" Fredrica Pasch (10 July 1735 – 2 April 1796), was a Swedish rococo painter and miniaturist, and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts.

Biography

Education and early career Ulrika Pasch was the daughter of the painter Lorens Pasch the Elder and Anna Helena Beckman, the niece of the artist Johan Pasch, and the sister of the future painter Lorens Pasch the Younger. Her grandfather, the painter Danckwart Pasch (d. 1727), had emigrated to Sweden from Lübeck. After the death of her grandfather in 1727, the family studio had been managed by her paternal grandmother Judith Larsdotter until it was taken over by her paternal uncle, Johan Pasch, in 1734. Her cousin, Margareta Stafhell, was a Chalcography artist.

Ulrika Pasch and her brother was tutored in drawing and painting by their father. She, unlike her sister Hedvig Lovisa Pasch (1744-1796) was tutored explicitly because she displayed early talent for the work. Hedvig Lovisa never became an artist, though it is mentioned that she left som drawings which were not without talent. She was able to move into her own apartments and establish her own studio. By the time of her brother's return to Sweden in 1766, she was said to have supported the family for a period of ten years.

Career

In 1766, her brother Lorens Pasch the Younger returned to Stockholm, and from that point on, the two siblings worked together. Their collaboration has been described as one of mutual respect and harmony. They shared their studio and guided each other in their work, while their sister Hedvig Lovisa managed their household. Hedvig Lovisa has been described as their dutiful housekeeper, and it is hinted and alleged by contemporaries that Hedvig Lovisa actually committed suicide after the death of her sister in 1796: she died later the same year. a recognition which seem to have been considered to be well deserved within the academy.

In fiction Ulrika Pasch is portrayed in the novel Pottungen (Chamber pot child) by Anna Laestadius Larsson from 2014, where she, alongside Anna Maria Lenngren, Ulrika Widström, Jeanna von Lantingshausen, Marianne Ehrenström and Sophie von Fersen, becomes a member in a Blue Stockings Society organized by Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp, and the fictitious Rower woman Johanna is hired as a nude model by her.