ArtistSwedish
Pär Andersson
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Pär Sigurd Andersson was born on 12 December 1926 in Skellefteå, in Västerbotten in northern Sweden. He grew up there before moving south for his education, and the northern Swedish landscape - its forests, late summer evenings, and restrained palette - recurs throughout his later work in painting and printmaking. He began formal studies at the Högre konstindustriella skolan in Stockholm from 1944 to 1948, followed by a year studying under André Lhote in Paris in 1948-1949. He then returned to Sweden to study at the Kungliga Konstakademien under Olle Nyman, graduating in 1956.
From 1959 to 1972 Andersson taught mural painting at Konstfack, the university college of arts and crafts in Stockholm. During that same period he began building what would become one of the most extensive bodies of public art in Sweden: approximately 100 commissions over his career, of which roughly 40 were church projects. He became a member of the Kungliga Akademien för de fria konsterna (Konstakademien) in 1973.
His approach to public commissions was defined by a concern with space rather than surface. Critics and colleagues noted that his work appeared to liberate architectural rooms rather than decorate them - the imagery expanding the sense of a space rather than filling it. This quality was especially evident in his church interiors, where he worked across several decades from the 1960s through the 1980s. Immanuelskyrkan in Stockholm is among the most documented of these projects. He also executed commissions in hospitals, schools, corporate buildings, and the Stockholm metro: the Universitetet station, opened in 1975, featured painted walls with motifs drawn from Norra Djurgården and the Bergianska gardens, rendered in both abstract and figurative registers. These paintings were removed during a renovation in 1996.
In his easel work, Andersson worked in oil, watercolour, and printmaking, particularly lithography. His subjects included still lifes, landscapes, and figure compositions. Auction titles such as "Sommarkväll" (Summer Evening), "Spegeln" (The Mirror), fruit basket compositions, and autumn leaf studies give a sense of the intimate, nature-centred register of his private practice. He is represented in the collections of Moderna museet in Stockholm and the Brooklyn Museum in New York. He was married from 1954 to the artist Astrid Theselius Andersson (1927-2019) and is the father of furniture designer Mats Theselius. He died on 18 February 2015 in Lidgatu, Ådals-Lidens parish, Västernorrland.
At auction, Andersson's work appears primarily through northern and Stockholm-based houses including Stadsauktion Sundsvall, Norrlands Auktionsverk, Bukowskis, Metropol, and Crafoord Auktioner. His prints - lithographs, often signed and numbered in editions of 300-460 - make up a significant share of market appearances, alongside oil paintings on panel. The top recorded result in available data is 1,800 SEK for "Sommarkväll" (oil on panel). Print works have sold in the range of 300-550 SEK.