Bengt Lindström

Bengt Lindström’s time attending Isaac Grünewald’s Stockholm school of painting during the mid-1940s functioned only as a springboard. As early as 1948 he was already living in Paris, after a research trip to Florence where he had become fascinated by old masters such as Giotto and Cimabue. In Paris he encountered French modernism and became a student of, amongst others, André Lhote and Fernand Léger. He searched for his mode of expression in both abstract and non-figurative painting.

At the end of the Second World War several new styles began to flourish around Europe as a reaction to the culturally sparse wartime years. Lindström was inspired by the expressive painting of the CoBrA movement, Jean Dubuffet’s art brut and the psychological imagery of Francis Bacon. These artistic encounters were cathartic to Lindström’s own painting. Lindström lived amongst his artistic soulmates in France, where his art came to be appreciated by an international audience. However, his roots in the small, isolated northern Swedish village of Storsjö Kapell, and its mystical landscapes of mountains, glimmering lakes and deep forests, are forever present in his imagery, which bears traces of nature poetry. His father was very interested in the cultural heritage of the Sami and at only three days old Bengt’s godfather, the Sami King Kroik, administered the ‘Baptism of the Earth’. In order to gain strength and power a child is literally pulled through a hole, often in the roots of a tree, which is believed to have magical powers. The young Bengt would accompany Kroik on his walks through the forests and mountains, whilst the Sami King recounted to him the legends and mysteries of the North. The characters from these stories would later come alive in Lindström’s own imagery.

Bengt Lindström is well-known to a Swedish audience, but he is also a big name internationally with regular exhibitions in galleries and museums in France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium. As well as his his large production of paintings his graphic work, using lithography and etching, has played a major part in Lindström’s practice. He has executed a great number of public and monumental works in both Sweden and abroad. Lindström’s artistic practice has also included glass, pottery, textiles and sculpture.