ArtistSwedish
Birger Forsberg
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Born in Hedesunda, Gästrikland, on 11 April 1922, Birger Forsberg grew up near the Dalälven river and spent his early years in the city of Gävle, where he attended drawing classes at an evening school. He joined the Brynäsgruppen, a loose collective of painters who shared a studio on Brynäsgatan in Gävle, and the camaraderie of that group shaped the breadth of his interests: oil painting, pastels, graphic art, drawing, small-scale wood sculpture, and eventually textile work.
Forsberg moved to Stockholm in the 1940s, continuing his studies at the Royal College of Art (Konstfack), and later made extended study trips to London, Paris, Italy, and Spain. From 1956 he taught graphic art at Konstfack for three decades, becoming one of the institution's long-serving figures in printmaking pedagogy. His commissions included the decorative programme for Slussen metro station in Stockholm in 1965, along with illustration work and stage design.
A visit to an exhibition of young Egyptian weavers at Moderna Museet in 1960 changed the direction of his practice significantly. Inspired by the Wissa Wassef Art Centre in Harrania, Egypt, Forsberg began running free textile workshops with children and young people in Hedesunda from 1965, on the banks of the Dalälven. The Hedesunda weavers went on to exhibit at Moderna Museet in 1976 and 1979 and at Länsmuseet in Gävle in 1978, with the show then touring the country for three years. Forsberg made roughly 60 trips to Egypt over his lifetime, deepening the cultural exchange at the heart of the project, which ran until 2006.
As a painter, Forsberg worked predominantly in oil and pastel, returning repeatedly to landscape, the nude, coastal scenes, city views of Stockholm, and horse motifs. His sculpted wooden pieces, often small in scale, show the same economy of form. He is represented in the collections of Moderna Museet, Länsmuseet Gävleborg, Örebro Konstmuseum, Kalmar Konstmuseum, and the Royal Library in Stockholm, as well as in a collection in New York.
At auction, Forsberg's work appears most frequently at Stockholms Auktionsverk, where it accounts for the majority of his 21 recorded lots. Prices have been modest, with the highest result being 3,800 SEK for an abstract wooden relief, and other oils achieving between 550 and 2,334 SEK. The market reflects his regional profile rather than broad international exposure, though his inclusion in major Swedish museum collections and his long career at Konstfack give his work a documented institutional grounding.