artist: Ingemar Callenberg (Swedish 1926-1973)
medium: woodblock print
dimensions: 34 x 35 cm framed size (image size approx 20 x 20 cm)
signed and numbered limited edition - 11/25
circa 1950s/60s
presented in an angled teak stained timber frame with acid free mat and backing, non-reflective UV glass
AU $680 (approx US $450 / 380 EUROS / 66,000 yen / 335 GBP - for exact current conversion visit xe.com)
artist biography
Ingemar Callenberg was born July 22, 1926, in Norrbotten County. He was a Swedish visual artist.
Callenberg studied at Konstfack in Stockholm as well as in Germany and France. In addition to his painting, he created a wide range of sculptures, tapestries, prints, book covers, and monumental wall paintings. Among his public works were murals for the district court in Falköping, for Folkets Hus in Gällivare, in a bank office at Vällingby Centrum, and in the Kolingsborg building at Slussen in Stockholm.
At Kolingsborg, then the office of the Stockholm Ports Authority, he depicted the harsh everyday life of dockworkers in large-scale wall paintings completed in the 1950s. These adorned the round hiring hall where labourers waited to be assigned work for the day. In the mid-1970s, the hall was converted into a discotheque and the walls were painted black, but Callenberg’s murals were preserved under panels and remained intact until late autumn 2015. They were destroyed during the redevelopment of Slussen, when Kolingsborg was demolished. Only three smaller fragments survive.
Callenberg later returned to Luleå, where he was frequently commissioned to create public art. In the early 1960s, he painted murals in the stairwells of newly built residential buildings in the district of Mjölkudden. In the neighbourhood of Örnäset, he even designed and constructed a modernist climbing frame for children.
He also collaborated with fellow artist Björn Blomberg on a major public commission for Furuhedsskolan in Kalix: Borgen (“The Castle”), a 40-ton artwork adorned with reliefs featuring personal names and historical facts about events in Kalix. Inside the structure, Callenberg and Blomberg designed benches for seating and open surfaces where people were free to write and draw. The work was inaugurated in 1970.
He passed away on July 16, 1973 in Luleå.