ArtistSwedish
Arne Lidqvist
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John Arne Lidqvist was born on 27 December 1919 in Fässbergs parish in Mölndal, a town in the Gothenburg region of western Sweden. He came up through Mölndal's local art scene, studying under Saga Walli and later Börge Hovedskou, who took over Walli's studio and continued her teaching. Despite these formative mentors, Lidqvist considered himself largely self-taught, and there is something to that self-assessment in the way his work sidesteps the conventions of the Swedish academic tradition and arrives at a personal, observation-driven naturalism.
His subject matter was consistent and focused: animals, and above all birds. Working in watercolour, ink, and oil, he built a substantial body of work centred on the bird life of Sweden's gardens, forests, and wetlands. Great tits, waxwings, thrushes, birds of prey - his repertoire covered the range of Swedish avifauna and displayed close knowledge of behaviour and plumage that suggests long hours of direct observation in the field. His ink drawings of small birds carry an economy and precision that critics compared to Japanese brushwork, a quality rare in the Nordic wildlife painting tradition.
Lidqvist exhibited individually in Gothenburg, Växjö, Kalmar, Örebro, Visby, and at the SDS hall in Malmö, reaching audiences across southern and western Sweden. He also participated in group exhibitions, though his profile was regional rather than national. His output was steady but not prolific by the standards of full-time studio painters, and the relative scarcity of his work contributes to its continuing presence on the auction market.
His institutional recognition came primarily through inclusion in the collections of the Natural History Museum in Gothenburg and the Mölndal municipal art collection. The Natural History Museum connection is fitting for a painter whose practice aligned closely with naturalist observation - his work sits at the intersection of fine art and scientific illustration without fully belonging to either category.
Lidqvist died on 29 January 1975 in Mölndal, aged 55. His auction presence is mainly in western and central Sweden, with works appearing at Göteborgs Auktionsverk, Karlstad Hammarö Auktionsverk, and several smaller regional houses. Oil paintings and watercolours of bird subjects continue to find buyers at modest price levels, appealing both to collectors of Swedish wildlife painting and to those drawn to the quiet, careful quality of his observation.