ArtistSwedish
Per Gunnar Thelander
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Pär Gunnar Thelander, known as PG Thelander, was born on 2 May 1936 in Stockholm. He trained first at Konstfack in the decorative painting programme from 1955 to 1959, then continued at the Royal Institute of Art (Kungliga Konsthögskolan) from 1959 to 1964. A period of study in Paris in 1962 exposed him to the European print tradition at a time when the medium was being stretched in new directions, and it left a lasting imprint on his graphic sensibility.
Although Thelander works across painting, sculpture, and drawing, his printmaking - particularly copper etching - is the core of his practice. His graphic sheets are marked by a fineness of line that recalls early Florentine Renaissance draughtsmanship, but the content sits firmly in the absurdist present. Animals are central to his imagery: penguins, frogs, tortoises, ostriches, and squirrels appear with flies, nuts, screws, carrots, and strips of wallpaper arranged around them with a kind of forensic calm. The incongruity is the point.
Since the 1970s, a small recurring figure has appeared throughout his work, functioning as a visual alter ego, a paraphrase of Jean Dubuffet's portrait of Henri Calet. This self-inserted presence ties his otherwise episodic imagery into a loose autobiographical thread, giving the work a warmth that prevents the absurdism from turning cold.
His career has brought consistent international recognition. He received awards at the World Print Competition, at print exhibitions in Tokyo (1966) and San Francisco (1973), and at the Biennial of Prints in Bhopal (1991). He has held solo exhibitions in Stockholm, Uppsala, Oslo, and internationally, and has participated in group shows in Ljubljana, Lugano, Copenhagen, Tokyo, and London.
His work is represented in the collections of Nationalmuseum Stockholm, Moderna museet, Göteborgs konstmuseum, the British Museum in London, the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, and museums in Dresden, Mexico City, New York, and San Francisco. Galleri Mats Bergman in Sweden has been a long-standing commercial partner, keeping his prints available to new collectors.
At Swedish auction houses, Thelander's 26 lots have appeared primarily at Stockholms Auktionsverk across its various locations (Magasin 5, Helsingborg, Sickla), alongside Gomér and Andersson in Linköping and Uppsala Auktionskammare. The market is anchored in his etchings: top results include a penguin composition at SEK 3,700 and a coloured etching with a pig at SEK 2,000. Prices reflect the accessible end of his published edition prints rather than unique works, and represent a consistent entry point for collectors of Swedish post-war graphics.