ArtistSwedish
Helge Högbom
1 active items
Helge Waldemar Högbom was born on December 2, 1910 in Malmö, and his whole artistic career remained rooted in the south of Sweden. He trained at William Zadig's sculpture school in Malmö, where he developed a steady command of clay modeling and bronze casting, with particular focus on the human figure at small and medium scale.
His work concentrated on portraiture and figuration: heads and busts of children, nude female figures rendered with quiet anatomical attention, and intimate small sculptures suited to private interiors. He first exhibited publicly in 1937 at the annual exhibition of Skånes konstförening (the Skåne Art Society) and returned to that platform regularly through 1956. These exhibitions in Lund and Malmö formed the core of his public profile throughout his career.
Högbom's most visible contribution to the public realm is the bronze fountain sculpture "Leda och svanen" (Leda and the Swan), placed at Trekanten in Eslöv in 1951. It was the first acquisition made by Eslöv's art council and prompted lively local debate at the time - an unusual level of civic engagement for a relatively modest Swedish town. The work demonstrates his ability to move from the intimate portrait format to a fully resolved outdoor composition. He also created "Gåsflickan" (The Goose Girl) in Falsterbo, another public bronze in the Skåne landscape.
Alongside sculpture he produced drawings, with a small number of paintings also recorded in his catalogue. His output remained consistently figurative throughout his life, with no apparent shift toward abstraction despite the broader currents of postwar Swedish art. He died on June 22, 1996 in Malmö.
On the Nordic auction market, Högbom's work circulates primarily through regional houses in Skåne and southern Sweden - Stockholms Auktionsverk Malmö, Stockholms Auktionsverk Helsingborg, Crafoord Auktioner Lund, and Garpenhus Auktioner among others. The 25 items tracked on Auctionist are almost entirely sculptures, with a small number of drawings. Top recorded prices reach approximately 2,400 SEK for a signed bronze figure study, reflecting a market for solid, decorative bronzes at accessible price points rather than high-end collecting.