Zorn was born and raised on his grandparents' farm in Yvraden, a hamlet near the village of Utmeland in the parish of Mora, Dalarna. He studied until the age of twelve in the school at Mora Strand before progressing in the autumn of 1872 to a secondary grammar school in Enköping. From 1875 to 1880 Zorn studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm. Zorn traveled extensively to London, Paris, the Balkans, Spain, Italy and the United States, becoming an international success as one of the most acclaimed portrait painters of his era. His subjects included three American Presidents - Grover Cleveland, William H. Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. At 29, he was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur at the Exposition Universelle 1889 Paris World Fair.
