ArtistSwedish
Gunnar Berglund
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Gunnar Herman Berglund was born on 9 November 1906 in Helsingborg, in the far south of Sweden, and spent most of his working life in Skåne. He came to formal art training relatively late: he attended Skånska Målarskolan between 1939 and 1940 and studied under William Nordin on Öland in 1942. In the years immediately after the Second World War he undertook an intensive period of study abroad, working at the Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1946 to 1947, then in London, and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris in 1947. The Paris school, a gathering point for modernist painters from across Europe and the Americas, exposed Berglund to post-impressionist colour thinking that would shape his mature palette.
His painting subjects were rooted in the places he knew: the flat, light-filled landscape of Skåne, frozen lakes in the Scandinavian winter, harbour scenes along the Swedish coast, and the occasional Continental subject from his travels. Among his documented works are titled pieces including Strandängar Barsebäck, Mot Genarp, and a harbour view from 1945, as well as a panel painting simply titled Madrid. He worked primarily in oil, on both canvas and panel, using watercolour and tempera for smaller studies. His handling of light in the Scanian landscape reflects the long tradition of outdoor painting in that region, informed by his exposure to the colour intensity of Fauvism and French post-impressionism.
Berglund showed regularly across southern Sweden. He held solo exhibitions in Kalmar, Malmö, Ystad, Ängelholm, and Kristianstad, and participated in group exhibitions with the Swedish General Art Association, the Gothenburg Art Association, and the Skåne Art Association. In 1949 he took part in the group exhibition De Tolv, The Twelve, in Ystad, a show that brought together a cohort of southern Swedish painters working in a broadly modern idiom. His work entered the permanent collection of the Malmö Museum, the primary public art institution of southern Sweden.
Berglund's career was that of a committed regional painter who worked within the traditions of Scandinavian landscape painting while absorbing lessons from French modernism. He did not pursue institutional recognition beyond the regional level, and his name is best known among collectors of Swedish mid-century figurative work. He died on 6 October 1992 in Malmö, having worked for more than five decades.
On the Nordic auction market Berglund's output is modest in volume but consistent in subject. The thirteen works on Auctionist are dominated by oil on panel and canvas: Scanian landscapes, a spring flood scene, frozen lakes, harbour views, and a still life. Top auction results include 844 SEK for Landskap med figur, 750 SEK for Frusen sjö, and 300 EUR for Strandängar Barsebäck sold in continental Europe. Houses active with his work include Helsingborgs Auktionskammare and Garpenhus Auktioner, both in his home region of southern Sweden.