Ossian Elgström was an illustrator, ethnologist and writer. He graduated as an engineer from the Technical School in Örebro and from 1905 studied art in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Paris. Back in Sweden, he worked as a cartoonist, and writer of humorous stories for Swedish magazines, and the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. He was especially fascinated by the Arctic people in Siberia, Lapland and Greenland, where he travelled frequently. He studied them, their lifestyles and myths, which he presented in several books and in paintings. Later, he created plenty of portraits of famous Swedish personalities such as King Gustaf VI Adolf, Eric von Rosen, Gustaf Bolinder und Sven Lidman.