Olle Hanspers

Copper engraving became the medium Hanspers made his own. While many post-war Swedish graphic artists worked primarily in etching or lithography, Hanspers returned again and again to the exacting demands of intaglio work - burin on copper plate - building compositions that combined portraiture and landscape with an unmistakably contemplative quality. Over the course of his career he produced more than three hundred graphic works, of which over half were pure copper engravings. The prints are often small in scale but dense with detail, and some editions were hand-colored by the artist.

His exhibition career began at the Nationalmuseum's "Young Draughtsmen" shows between 1951 and 1954, and he showed in "Young Graphics" at Kulturen in Lund in 1955. He subsequently exhibited with the Swedish General Art Society and the Dalarna Art Association, and his work reached international audiences through the printmaking biennials in Ljubljana and Bradford - two of the most significant platforms for graphic art in the post-war era. His prints entered the collections of Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Eskilstuna Art Museum, Örebro County Museum, Dalarnas Museum, Norrbottens Museum, and the State Museum for Art in Copenhagen, as well as the private collection of King Gustaf VI Adolf.

In the 1990s, Hanspers made an extraordinary gift to posterity: he donated a complete impression of his entire graphic production, including proof series, to the Mörksuggefonden foundation in Rättvik - ensuring that the full arc of his working life as a printmaker would be preserved in Dalarna, the region where he was born and to which he returned. He died on May 4, 2012, one day after his 89th birthday, in Enviken.

At Swedish auction houses, Hanspers' prints circulate primarily through Stockholm venues and regional Dalarna houses. On Auctionist, 29 works have appeared across houses including Crafoord Auktioner Stockholm, Metropol, Stockholms Auktionsverk Sickla, and Garpenhus Auktioner. Works offered include the hand-colored copperplate "Silent year" (4,200 SEK), the 1973 plate "California, I love you" (3,000 SEK), and the print "Epilog." Categories are dominated by works on paper, with prints and engravings well represented.