Oscar Jacobsson was a Swedish cartoonist, known internationally for his pantomime comic strip 'Adamson' (1919-1945). Born in 1889 in Göteborg, Jacobsson started his career in 1918, when his first newspaper illustrations were published in Naggen. Two years later, he was asked to create a comic strip for Söndags-Nisse. This resulted in 'Adamson', about the misadventures of a little cigar-smoking man. It soon became immensely popular, not only in Sweden, but also in the rest of Europe, the USA, China and Japan.
In addition, Jacobsson made illustrations for magazines and papers like Exlex, Dagens Nyheter and Lutfisken. During the final stages of his career, he added another comic to his oeuvre, 'Abu Fakir,' published in Vi. Besides a comic artist, Jacobsson was also a renowned painter.
Jacobsson's 'Adamson' strip was continued by the Danish artist Viggo Ludvigsen after the author's death from 1945 until 1964. In the USA, parallel versions of the strip were drawn by Henry Thol (1935-40) and Jeff Hayes (1941-53). In 1946, a year after his death, a memorial exhibition of Jacobsson's work was held in his birthtown Göteborg.
In 1966 journalist Sture Hegerfors founded the Svenska Serieakademin ("Swedish Academy of Comics") and established an annual award to celebrate international comic artists. It was only fitting that it was named after Sweden's most recognizable comic character and thus the Adamson Awards were born, which are still handed out to this very day.
