Esaias Thorén was a visual artist born in 1901 in Halmstad. He first wanted to become a musician, but after seeing a painting by the artist Gösta Adrian-Nilsson, he started painting. In 1923 he met Sven Jonson and formed the group "De unga" with Axel Olson as teacher.

     In 1924 they exhibit in Halmstad, then studies at Carl Wilhelmson's painting school in Stockholm in 1925, followed by a trip to Paris with Sven Jonson in 1926. There they studied model drawing at Académie Scandinave where Otte Sköld was a teacher, and participated in the Paris exhibition of 1927. Together with Sven Jonson, he formed "Modern reklam" (Modern Advertising) in 1927, a combined studio and painting school.
    In August 1929 Thorén, together with Sven Jonson, Waldemar Lorentzon, Stellan Mörner and the brothers Axel and Erik Olson formed "The Halmstad Group" at the home of friend Egon Östlund. The artists started with the style of geometric cubism, then moved to surrealism in the 1930s, to finally each discovering their own version of expressionism from the 1940s onward.

     In 1930 Thorén participated in Otto G. Carlsund's exhibition Art Concret in Stockholm and in 1931 he studied graphics at the Stockholm Academy of the Arts.   During the latter part of his career, Thorén partly left the surrealist imagery for a more decorative still life painting, often with beach finds and fish as characteristic elements.

     The artist is represented in these public institutions:

• The National Museum in Stockholm

• The Modern Museum in Stockholm

• Institut Tessin in Paris

• The National Gallery in Oslo

• Norrköping Art Museum

• Mjellby Art Museum in Halmstad

• Gävle Museum

• Malmö Museum

• Örebro Museum

• Gothenburg Art Museum

• Kalmar Art Museum