Artist of the month: Olle
Svanlund
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Olle Svanlund was born in Blekinge in Southern-Sweden in 1909. At the age of eleven he moved to the city of Malmö. Drawing and painting was his great passion from early childhood. During 1927 and 1928 he studied in Germany: first as a trainee at an advertising agency in Hamburg, followed by studies at the Reiman Artschool in Berlin. The following year he moved to Paris, where he was the pupil of F. Léger and O. Friesz. He also studied art at the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen during the years 1938 to1941. After the studies in Copenhagen, Olle Svanlund moved at first to the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic sea and later to Paris, where he lived most of the year with frequent visits to his summer house Svanlunda, near to Torekov in S-Sweden. Olle Svanlund died in 1994. |
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During the 1930:ies Olle Svanlund was one of the
most successful advertisement illustrators in Scandinavia. His work had great expressive power and artistic design. The advertisement posters shown here are good examples from this period. |
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After the studies in Copenhagen, work of Olle Svanlund were
mostly conventional figurative drawings and oils as seen here on the left. During the 1960:ies Olle Svanlund turned to abstract painting with great success. A good example from this period is "A play in the universe" on the left. |
During the 1970:ies, Olle Svanlund, turned to figurative
surrealistic painting and etching. |
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| Work of Olle Svanlund are presently sold at auctions at very low prices.
Why is a mystery ! His background as a advertisement illustrator might be one
reason. Another reason might be that he lived in Paris and thus lost contact with
critics in Scandinavia. As the third reason might be his surrealistic period during
the 1970:ies, where his work resembled others like MW Svanberg very much. His
abstract paintings are, however, of world class and should be appreciated as such. Saemundur Gudmundsson |