artist: Gunnar Persson (Swedish 1908-1975)
medium: oil on panel
dimensions: 73 x 30 cm panel size / 76 x 33 cm framed size (approx)
signed and dated 59
presented in its original frame
AU $1150 (approx US $1700 / 1610 EUROS / 222,000 yen / 1380 GBP - for exact current conversion visit xe.com)
artist biography
Gunnar Persson was born soon 14 September 1908 in Stockholm. He was a Swedish painter.
Persson studied from 1928 to 1931 at Gottfrid Larsson's målarskola (Painting School) in Stockholm. He undertook numerous private art study trips including ones to France in 1938/39 and again in 1946/47, Italy in 1945, 1955 and 1956, Spain in 1950 and 1952 and Greece in 1954.
He is best known for his landscapes, interiors, figure compositions and portraits paintings in oil or watercolour. Persson liked to work in a fine-tuned grayscale with occasional stronger, contrasting accents in darker black or brown. Persson generally preferred to work in a smaller format. Art critic M. Strömberg wrote of Perrson’s work on 21 March, 1957 in Stockholms-Tidningen newspaper:
'(Persson) invites calm reflections on the poetry of things. It breathes harmony and is a balm for anxious senses ... A certain simplification of form is clear in his latest painting, but he has no direct drive for the far-reaching abstraction.’
Persson had solo exhibitions in Stockholm at Gummesons konst galleri in 1941, 1945, 1951, 1954 and 1957, at Modern Konst i Hemmiljö (Modern Art in a Home Environment) in 1946, in Samlaren 1949 and in Konstnärshuset 1960, in Göteborg 1946, 1948 and 1954. He exhibited at other locations in Sweden including galleries in Linköping, Södertälje and Varberg.He showed in numerous group exhibitions including several Dalarna's Art Association's exhibitions in Falun beginning 1939, exhibitions at Färg och Form in Stockholm, ’Stockholms salongen’ in Liljevalchs konsthall in 1959 and some of Sveriges allmänna konstförening (Sweden's general art association) salons in Stockholm.
Persson is represented in numerous public collections in Sweden includes paintings at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Gustav VI Adolf's collection, Kalmar Konstmuseum and the Östersund Museum.
He passed away in 1975.