artist: Bertil Berntsson (Swedish 1921-2002)
medium: oil on panel
dimensions: 53 x 46 cm board size / 55 x 48 cm frame size (approx)
signed
circa late 1940s/early 1950s
* attached verso - vintage article on Berntsson that pictures this exact painting
presented in a new hand finished timber frame
AU $1550 (approx US $580 / 550 EUROS / 77,500 yen / 470 GBP - for exact current conversion visit xe.com)
artist bio
Sven Bertil Berntsson was born on 1 January, 1921 in Värö parish, south western Sweden. He was a painter, printmaker and sculptor.
Berntsson studied at the Konsthögskolan Valand (The Gothenburg Museum Drawing School - which was re-named 'Valand School of Art' in 1950) between 1939 and 1940, the Skåne painting school (Skånska målarskolan) in Malmö between 1945 and 1946 and then in Paris, in 1949, under the French sculptor, painter, teacher and writer André Lhote (1885-1962).
He first exhibited in Varberg in 1939 and showed in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Stockholm, Malmö and Helsingborg between 1947 and 1953. Most notably Berndsson was part of the 1949 'Skånska Konstnärer' (Skåne Artists) exhibition in Eskilstuna.
Berntsson's early paintings were impressionistic (landscapes and portraits), but from the mid 1950s his works became increasingly structural and abstract in composition.
His works are held in the collections of the Moderna Museet (Museum of Modern Art) in Stockholm, Malmö konstmuseum (Malmö Art Museum), Ystad Art Museum (Ystads konstmuseum), Helsingborg City Museum (Helsingborgs stadsmuseum), Halmstad Museum, Lund University's Collection and the Archive for Decorative Art (Arkiv för dekorativ konst) in Lund. Examples of Berntsson's public work can be seen at the Östra Sjukhus (Malmö Östra Hospital), Skåne University Hospital and the Helsingborg Hospital.
Berntsson passed away in 2002, aged 81.