Carl Sprinchorn (1887–1971) was a Swedish-born American artist who studied under Robert Henri and who adopted a style of realist modernism that admiring critics saw as both abstract and revolutionary.

As one critic put the matter, "He has the rare quality of making whatever subject he essays interesting and unusual, be it bouquets of flowers, riders in six-day bicycle races, Spanish dancers or straight American landscape.

In 1918, a critic said his drawings showed the kind of "bold pen outline" and gift for "incisive statement" that could be seen in work by British caricaturist, Thomas Rowlandson.

Regarding a cluster of posthumous exhibitions held in 2002, a critic wrote, "In Sprinchorn's hands, the Maine woods come alive through the actions of men who are most comfortable among the trees: hunters, trappers, lumberjacks and river drivers, mostly.

These large, rugged images are full of earthy colors that recall the blue-chill of winter, the blaze-orange glow of autumn and the shadowy scenes that accompany nighttime campfires..."[5] Writing in 2002, a biographer wrote of a contrast between the sophisticated urban focus of much of Sprinchorn's work and the unsophisticated rural focus of his output from the forests of Maine.

Calling him a "composite of opposites," she said he was as much at home in the New York art world with its sophisticated artists and wealthy patrons as he was in rural boarding houses and lumber camps.

[6]: 122 In a 1974 letter to a friend Sprinchorn said he had determined to emigrate from Sweden after reading about an inspiring teacher named Robert Henri.

[6]: 123 [note 1] Although he was just fifteen when he set off for New York and although he spoke only Swedish, he knew that one of his older sisters—then working as a maid to a family in Manhattan—would help him make the difficult transition after he arrived.

He praised Sprinchorn for catching "a big new note" and placing it upon canvas "with haunting effect" and added that he knew of "few more promising painters.

[17][18] At this time a critic saw Sprinchorn as "one of the younger members of the new 'revolutionary' school of artists, who, as a body, have met with so little encouragement from the juries of the National Academy of Design.

[23] During the winter months Monson was home to the camps of loggers who took advantage of swollen streams and rivers to transport wood to lumber mills further south and east.

[24] Having previously become known for scenes of blizzards and heavy snowfall in the slums of Manhattan, Sprinchorn seems to have felt comfortable depicting the work of these loggers and the environment in which they spent the cold months of the year.

[13][25][note 2] As his career matured Sprinchorn would re-visit Monson and other locales in the North Maine Woods over the next three decades and would spend most of his time there in the years between 1942 and 1952.

[18][7] In 1915 he was one of eleven "representative American painters" selected for an exhibition in the main gallery of the fine arts building at the Panama–California Exposition in San Diego, California.

On this occasion a critic recognized an affinity to English artist Thomas Rowlandson but noted that Sprinchorn saw things in a more fragmentary manner, in angles rather than curves, and with more biting humor.

The critic concluded by saying Sprinchorn was "amazingly skillful in obtaining the richest and most splendid results by holding back the full force of his pigment, and suggesting reserves of color behind the surface painting.

[39] The show at the Sterner Gallery drew extensive critical examination from The Arts magazine, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and New York Herald newspapers.

"[41] In his introduction to the catalog of the exhibition, the art critic, curator, and collector, Christian Brinton, described what he saw as Sprinchorn's "eager, ceaseless odyssey in quest of fresh plastic and chromatic stimulus.

"[3]: 7 [note 7] Between 1922 and 1925 Sprinchorn was art director of the New Gallery which exhibited and sold works by little-known American artists and avant-garde European ones.

Sprinchorn used his earnings from his job at the New Gallery and other sources to fund a year and a half of travel in Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo in 1926 and 1927.

[17] In 1984 the art museum at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, mounted a retrospective called "Carl Sprinchorn: Realist Impulse and Romantic Vision.

Throughout most of his career critics gave most of their attention to his still lifes and other indoor subjects and the few existing records of his art sales show greatest interest in this work.

Some years later, he recalled how favorably the New York press responded to this work and said that the solo exhibition produced a large number of purchases.

[64]: 110  In 1916 a critic for the New York Sun called attention to Sprinchorn's abbreviated lines and use of simplification and noted the "spirit and grace" of his drawings.

[29] Noting in Sprinchorn's drawings "a keen vision and a witty analysis," a critic for The New York Times said in 1918 that the artist was "amazingly skillful in obtaining the richest and most splendid results by holding back the full force of his pigment, and suggesting reserves of color behind the surface painting.

The critic called them "vivid, syncopated sketches," that told "within their narrow boundaries more truths about color and form that most artists find it possible to say upon their biggest canvases.

"[34] In 1922 a critic said the drawings were "expressed in spirited line and subtly modulated passages of blue, purple, pale yellow, and green.

"[59] In a post-career summation of his work a critic said what distinguished Sprinchorn's style was his "ability to set down an image with brutal personal honesty, as if he could do nothing else.

Throughout his career Sprinchorn's media were oil paintings on canvas and works on paper in watercolor, pencil, pen, wash, crayon, and charcoal.

[68] His subjects varied widely: cityscapes of New York and landscapes of the Maine woods and tropical settings; human figures, including city laborers and rural woodsmen, as well as urban sophisticates; Scandinavian farm scenes; floral still lifes.