Löparna (The Runners)

Artist: Carl Eldh
Commissioned by: Malte Liewen Stierngranat
Original work: Installed at Stockholm Stadium 1937
Location: Kråkberget, north of Gyllene Uttern, Gränna
Year installed: 1950
Models: Lennart Strandberg and Gösta Strömberg

Malte Liewen Stierngranat, an art connoisseur and Gränna resident, commissioned a replica of sculptor Carl Eldh’s work Löparna. The original sculpture was erected at Stockholm Stadium in 1937. Stierngranat managed to persuade Cavalry Master Rolf Gyllensvaan of Västanå Manor to donate land north of his hotel Gyllene Uttern, a site known as Kråkberget, where the work was installed in 1950

Löparna is modelled after Lennart Strandberg and Gösta Strömberg, whose photograph Carl Eldh had seen in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. In Jönköping, the sculpture has sometimes been colloquially referred to as ‘The Flight from the Countryside’ – a name that alludes to the fact that the figures appear to be running away from Gränna, towards Jönköping.