ArtistSwedish
Hans Lindberg
1 active items
Hans Lindberg was born in 1928 in Brandstorps parish, Skaraborg county, a region of flat farmland and scattered woodlands in western Sweden. He never attended an art academy. What he developed instead was a personal pictorial language built around a single motif so consistently repeated that it became an identity: white mountain cows, painted on canvas and panel, often given wings, in oils and in colour lithographs. The nickname 'Komålaren', the Cow Painter, followed naturally and eventually became his signature.
The winged cow was not a whim. For Lindberg the animal carried layered meanings - fertility, environmental stewardship, and the pastoral peace he associated with the Swedish countryside. In a period when industrialisation and agricultural consolidation were transforming the Swedish landscape, his cows read as a kind of gentle protest, executed in a naive-expressionist style that sat outside both the academic mainstream and the urban avant-garde of his era.
Beyond the cows, Lindberg painted still lifes and Stockholm motifs, demonstrating a range that his single-motif reputation sometimes obscured. He also worked as a graphic artist, producing limited-edition colour lithographs including series such as 'Arkiv'. Alongside his own practice he served as artistic consultant to several Swedish public bodies, including the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), Stockholm County Council, and the Social and Recreation Administration in Stockholm - a professional role that brought his visual sensibility into institutional settings.
In 1972 he established the gallery Sågaretorpet south of Brandstorp in Habo municipality, Jönköping county. The gallery, set in a converted sawmill farm, became over the following decades a destination in its own right - a place where his work could be seen in the landscape that inspired it. It continued operating after his death and has been taken on by his grandson, ensuring the site retains its connection to his legacy.
Lindberg died on January 6, 2021, aged 92. A memorial exhibition was announced for the summer of that year. His works appear at auction primarily through Metropol Auktioner, which accounts for the majority of his eleven items recorded on Auctionist, with further appearances at Gomér and Andersson in Jönköping and Stockholms Auktionsverk. Prices have been modest, with oil paintings achieving around 500 SEK and colour lithographs selling for 100 SEK, reflecting the local and regional character of his market. The auction record aligns with the work of an artist who built his reputation through a gallery practice and public consultancy rather than through the commercial gallery system.