A haunting Art Deco in period Pre-Raphaelite in aesthetic watercolor fine art painting by the well listed artist Axel Linus titled Leto And Apollo. A favored lover of Zeus, Leto is known in ancient Greek mythology as the ideal of maternal sacrifice and love.  Mother to both Apollo and Artemis, Leto was tormented by Hera, the wife of Zeus, while pregnant with her divine twins.  Chased to the ends of the earth by Hera, Leto was forced to give birth to her sons on the desolate island of Delos.  In this image, she is seen holding the baby Apollo on the floating island, the sacred place of the god Apollo.  A beautiful allegorical image of the protective love of the mother, and a remarkable crisp painting which is handsomely framed and matted behind glass in a fine silver gallery frame.

Axel Linus

1885 – 1980

Born in Oreboro, Sweden, he was a western landscape painter who immigrated to America in 1920, having attended the Royal Academy of Arts in Stockholm and later the Colorossi Academic and Academic Modern in Paris.

In Sweden, he became an established portrait and landscape artist. In 1920, he went to Chicago where he did much painting including murals for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, a portrait of Carl Sandburg, and was a member of the Swedish American Association. Portrait subjects included Charles Lindburg and Carl Sandburg.

In 1940, he settled in Palm Springs, California, having traveled by trailer and painted the country extensively on his honeymoon in 1938. Travel locations included Florida, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona where he spent two weeks trying to paint the Superstition Mountains. He was in such a remote area he had a truck driver bring him and his wife food and supplies each day, and on the Hopi Reservation, they did extensive hiking and camping.

The couple purchased a hotel in Palm Springs, California and set up a studio in Snow Creek Canyon at the foot of Mount San Jacinto. He was a member of the Desert Art Center and the Palm Desert Palette Club.