Biography

Swedish painter. His father, the portrait painter Lorentz Pasch the Elder (1702-66), sent him to Uppsala University to study. After one term he returned to Stockholm and began his artistic training in his father's studio. In 1752 he went to Copenhagen to study under Carl Gustaf Pilo, Jacques-François-Joseph Saly and Johann Martin Preisler at the Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi. He won a second-place medal and was promised a travel scholarship from Sweden. This did not materialize, but nevertheless he travelled in 1757 to Paris, where, on recommendation from Alexander Roslin, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts with Roslin, Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Pierre and Louis-Michel van Loo as teachers. In 1761 he was awarded a scholarship of 300 riksdalers and two years later it was extended.

He returned to Sweden in 1766 and, after being presented at the royal court by Jean Eric Rehn, he began his career in earnest, becoming professor at the Kungliga Akademi för de Fria Konsterna in 1773 and its Director in 1793. In his portraits he emulated the Rococo style of Roslin and Boucher, and his painting of drapery reveals a colouristic finesse that was influenced by Pilo's work. In the 1780s Pasch was influenced by English portraiture. He executed portraits of three generations of the royal family, paintings of the nobility and the bourgeoisie and portraits of relatives and friends, as well as official presentation pieces.

In the 1780s and 1790s he did a series of 38 paintings (in situ) of Lantmarskalker (Field marshals) for the Riddarhus in Stockholm. In his work there is a Rococo superficiality in the portrayals of character and in the repetitions of poses. His portraits are not psychologically penetrating: they display a certain charm and show great care in the painting of materials and in the delicate, overall coloration. His uncle Johan Pasch the Elder (1706-69) was a decorative and portrait painter and engraver. His sister Ulrika Fredrika Pasch (1735-96) was a painter and aided him by executing some of the details in his portraits.