ArtistSwedish
Bertil Lundberg
1 active items
Klas Bertil Lundberg was born on 16 December 1922 in Lund, in the southern Swedish province of Skåne, and died on 3 February 2000 in Malmö. He trained at Skånska målarskolan before continuing his studies in Paris, an education that combined a grounding in southern Swedish art traditions with exposure to the postwar European avant-garde.
Lundberg worked primarily in copperplate printmaking, developing an approach in which image-making emerged from an interplay between chance and technical control. After laying the groundwork on the plate, he worked with tools and chemicals to let forms surface and dissolve - exploring themes of origin and cessation, black holes, and what he described as infinite time. The resulting prints are abstract and process-oriented, their surfaces carrying a quality that resists easy categorisation within any single movement.
In 1964, ABF established Målarskolan Forum in Malmö and Lundberg joined as a teacher of graphics. The school grew under his influence into Grafikskolan Forum, eventually gaining state funding and becoming incorporated into Malmö konsthögskola (the Malmö Art Academy) in the 1980s. Lundberg taught there until the end of that decade, shaping the graphic arts education of generations of Swedish artists. In 1984 he was awarded the title of professor.
His work entered the collections of institutions across Sweden and internationally: Moderna museet in Stockholm, the art museums of Gothenburg, Kalmar, and Malmö, Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, the Institut Français in Copenhagen, the Musée d'Art Moderne in Algiers, and the Biblioteca Nacional José Martí in Havana. This international spread reflects both the quality of his printmaking and the reach of Swedish cultural diplomacy during the Cold War decades.
On the Swedish auction market, Lundberg's 17 items recorded on Auctionist are split between paintings and graphic works, with a standout sterling silver vase made in Stockholm in 1968 - a reminder that his practice extended into applied arts. Sales have passed through houses including Crafoord Auktioner in Lund, Limhamns Auktionsbyrå, Garpenhus Auktioner, and Helsingborgs Auktionskammare, a southern Swedish concentration that reflects the Malmö and Skåne roots of his career. Top prices have reached 4,800 SEK for the silver piece, while signed and numbered etchings have typically sold in the 350–500 SEK range.