ArtistSwedish
Harry Booström
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Harry Sixten Booström was born on 15 December 1917 in Guldrupe, on the island of Gotland. Growing up on that Baltic island left a lasting imprint on his sensibility, and he would return there for summers throughout his life, drawing on its stark limestone landscapes and open light even as his painting moved toward pure geometry.
He trained in Stockholm between 1941 and 1945, studying first at Edward Berggren's school and then under Isaac Grünewald. This brought him into contact with a generation of Swedish painters who were absorbing the European avant-garde in the immediate postwar years. Booström was a contemporary of the group known as the "1947 men" and, like them, found early inspiration in the concrete tradition pioneered by artists such as Mondrian and the Swiss concretists.
In 1948 he settled in Stockholm and made his debut at Samlaren. Through the 1950s his work moved steadily away from loose abstraction toward the strictly non-representational: geometric forms, flat planes of colour, and compositions built on mathematical relationships between shapes. Works from this period carry titles like "Suprematism" and "Spatial Image," indicating the theoretical grounding behind the visual economy on the canvas.
Booström was an active member of the international Groupe Espace, which promoted collaboration between artists and architects. This engagement had practical results: together with architect Bertil Ahlqvist, he worked on the colour design for a row of terraced houses in Visby in the early 1960s, integrating art into the built environment. He also exhibited at major international concrete art venues - Høstudstillingen and Den Frie Udstilling in Copenhagen, Réalités Nouvelles in Paris, and the group exhibition Stockholmskonkretisterna in Halmstad. A retrospective at Norrköpings Konstmuseum in 2015, titled "Avantgardist och konkretist," brought renewed attention to the full arc of his career.
His work is held at Nationalmuseum, Moderna Museet, and in the collection of King Gustaf VI Adolf, who donated four works by Booström to Moderna Museet in his will. He died in 1996.
On the auction market Booström appears primarily at Stockholm houses. Stockholms Auktionsverk accounts for the largest share of his lots, followed by Bukowskis and RA Auktionsverket Norrköping. The 17 auction records in Auctionist's database are catalogued overwhelmingly as paintings, with a top recorded price of 5,800 SEK for an oil on panel titled "Islossning" (Ice Break-Up). Prices are modest relative to his institutional footprint, which may reflect the limited supply of works that reach the market.