artist: Wilgot Lind (Swedish 1915-1996)
medium: gouache on paper
dimensions: 20 x 16 cm art size (approx) / 42 x 38 cm framed size (approx)
signed
circa 1950s
* currently being framed in a double thick archival mat with non-reflective UV glass and hand finsihed timber frame - due back at the gallery mid to late November, 2025. If pruchased in the meantime we will fulfil your order as soon as this is back from our workshop.
* 7 November, 2025 - currently on hold. Please contact us on the form below to be notified if this becomes available.
AU $2250 (approx US $1465 / 1275 EUROS / 225,000 yen / 11200 GBP - for exact current conversion visit xe.com)
artist biography
Wilgot Fredrik Lind was born on 1 October 1915 in Örgryte, Bohuslän. He was a Swedish artist and one of the early innovators of Swedish abstract art.
Largely self-taught, Lind began painting as a teenager, and his earliest motifs depicted the port of Gothenburg. A formative journey to Paris in 1948 profoundly changed his artistic direction: inspired by modern abstract painters such as Alfred Manessier and Jean Bazaine, he became one of the first artists to introduce abstraction to the Gothenburg art scene.
Lind travelled widely throughout Europe, studying and exhibiting in France (1946), Denmark and Norway (1946, 1948, 1953, 1954), and later held numerous solo exhibitions — among them Galleri Aveny in Gothenburg (1950, 1951), Galleri Brinken in Stockholm (1952), and in Skara (1953), as well as in Övertorneå, Ulricehamn, Lidköping, Arvika, Halmstad, and Alingsås. He participated in group exhibitions at Konsthallen in Gothenburg (1945–49), Galleri Aveny (1950–54), and Uddevalla (1954). In 1950, his first exhibition of abstract paintings at Galleri Aveny received glowing critical praise.
After a period of illness, Lind developed a new form of expression through gouache painting, creating a personal and vividly coloured visual language that culminated in a celebrated exhibition at Gallery 54 in Gothenburg in 1962. Working across a wide range of media — oil, gouache, watercolour, linocut, monotype, batik, lithography, mosaic in stone and glass, and textile printing — he created a large body of work, encompassing landscapes, still lifes, figures, and purely abstract compositions. Though many of his titles were reality-based, his paintings were almost always non-figurative. Critics praised his refined sensitivity to colour and light: Bo Lindwall in Aftonbladet (12 March 1952) described his watercolours as “beautiful, graceful and refined in colour,” while Eugen Wretholm in Svenska Morgonbladet (20 March 1952) admired his “subtle overlays of airily transparent planes.”
Lind lived and worked in Gothenburg but drew inspiration from his summer house in Haverdal, near the artists of the Halmstad Group. For two decades he held annual summer exhibitions there and participated in major shows including the Spring Salon at Liljevalchs and exhibitions at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, as well as international exhibitions in New York, Zurich, and Wuppertal.
Lind described his creative process simply: “I get my inspiration from within and see myself only as the tool.” His work is represented in numerous prestigious collections, including the Brooklyn Museum (New York), the British Museum (London), the Wuppertal Museum (Germany), the Gothenburg Museum of Art, the Borås Art Museum, and the Gustav VI Adolf Collections.
A member of the National Organisation of Swedish Artists (Konstnärernas riksorganisation) and of Grupp 54 in Gothenburg, Wilgot Lind remained throughout his life an artist of great refinement, lyricism, and formal clarity — a pioneering voice in the emergence of Swedish abstract art.
He passed away in 1996.