He is known for his light filled landscapes, especially its oak strewn hills with views of the Bay. His painting entitled Berkeley Oaks was displayed in the inaugural exhibition of the Del Monte Art Gallery. Of that event, one critic wrote, “Art critics have declared that the oaks of Mr. Dahlgren are among the best painted, the treatment being different from Keith’s . . . . Keith paints mostly from imagination, Dahlgren paints from nature, and obtains the truer portrayal.”
He was also a skilled portraitist. In 1885, the San Francisco Chronicle reviewed the San Francisco Art Association exhibition and reported that Dahlgen’s genre portrait of Marion Wells called Iterior of a Studio attracted a good deal of attention.” (Frances Marion Wells was a San Francisco sculptor and a charter member of the Bohemian Club.)
Carl Dahlgren was born in Skjelskior, Denmark in 1941, the third of nine children. At age 19, he moved to Copenhagen. in 1866, he fought in the Austro-Prussian War when he was 25 years old. After the war, he studied at the Copenhagen Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1872, 31 year old Carl and his artist brother Marius moved to Salt Lake City. Six years later in 1878, they moved to San Francisco with with Carl’s new bride, Amelia Kjaer. The brothers became members of the San Francisco Art Association. Both brothers’ paintings are represented in the collection of the Oakland Museum.
A reference to Carl Dahlgren's activity in Santa Rosa from the Aug. 6, 1908 Santa Rosa Press Democrat was submitted by Jeff Eliot who writes a blog focused on local Santa Rosa history. He was in Sonoma County to paint botanicals for Luther Burbank and to paint local Sonoma scenery.
