ArtistSwedish
Hasse Hasselgren
1 active items
Nils Hasse Hasselgren was born on 19 August 1933 in Malmö and spent most of his working life in the city. His formal training took place across two institutions: the Essem School in Malmö from 1950 to 1953, followed by a break before returning to study painting at Målarskolan Forum in Malmö from 1960 to 1963, then graphics at Grafikskolan Forum from 1964 to 1969. That sequence, moving from a commercial-leaning early education into fine arts painting and then into printmaking, maps a trajectory toward increasingly independent artistic expression.
His output combined painting and graphic work, with etching and lithography forming a significant part of his practice alongside oil on canvas. The auction titles that survive in the Swedish market give a partial picture of his range: works titled with names like "Låd-drake" (Box kite) and compositions featuring figures suggest an art that moved between abstract formal invention and more concrete subject matter, without fully anchoring itself in either tradition. His lithographs were produced in small numbered editions, consistent with an artist who maintained a connection to craft and the handmade object.
The artist was part of the cultural life of southern Sweden during the 1960s and 1970s, a period when Malmö and the surrounding region supported a generation of painters and printmakers navigating between American-influenced abstraction and Swedish figurative traditions. His relationship to the artist Christina Campbell, with whom he lived during the 1970s and 1980s, connects him to that broader milieu.
His institutional representation is the most precise measure of how his work was assessed by his contemporaries. He is held at Moderna museet in Stockholm, Malmö Museum, Gothenburg Art Museum, Skissernas Museum in Lund, Kalmar Art Museum, Värmlands Museum and Västernorrlands Läns Museer. Internationally, his work entered collections at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje and the Pantswowe Museum in Poland, a relatively unusual reach for a Swedish regional artist of his generation.
Hasselgren died on 31 October 2002 in Malmö.
At auction, his work appears mainly at regional houses, with Garpenhus Auktioner, Örebro Stadsauktioner and Helsingborgs Auktionskammare among the most active sellers. Oils, etchings and lithographs all appear. Recorded sale prices have been low, in the range of 200-450 SEK, which places his auction market firmly at the entry level. This stands in some contrast to his museum representation, suggesting his critical reception outpaced commercial demand during his lifetime and has not yet attracted collector interest on the secondary market. His 20 catalogued items on Auctionist are entirely from past auctions, with no active listings at present.