ArtistSwedish
Stina Sunesson
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Born on 23 July 1925 in Ål, Kopparbergs County, Stina Sunesson grew up in a corner of Sweden that would shape everything she painted. The rolling fields and festive traditions of Dalarna became her primary subject matter, and she returned to them again and again across a career spanning four decades.
Her formal training began in 1952 at Otte Sköld's painting school in Stockholm, one of the more progressive private ateliers in postwar Sweden. It was there she met her future husband, the folk singer Calle Sunesson. The two pursued further studies in Paris, absorbing the color intensity of French painting before settling in Tibble in 1956 and eventually making their permanent home in Tällberg, by the shores of Lake Siljan, in the early 1960s. Study trips to France, Italy, and Spain broadened her visual language while anchoring it more firmly in the warmth of Mediterranean light.
Sunesson began as a watercolorist, then moved progressively toward oil and gouache, finding in gouache a medium that could carry both the spontaneity of watercolor and the density of color she was after. Her compositions typically bring together children at play, farm animals, flowering fields, and the ritual gatherings of Swedish folk culture - midsummer dances, Easter festivities, spring awakenings. The detail is precise but never dry; the palette tends toward warm reds, yellows, and greens that read as genuinely joyful rather than sentimental.
Beyond painting she worked as a graphic artist and illustrator. In 1960, coinciding with the Fröding centenary jubilee, she published a portfolio of serigraphs illustrating poems by Gustaf Fröding. She also made works responding to Erik Axel Karlfeldt's poetry. Tapestry commissions took her back to France, where she collaborated with weavers in Aubusson, translating her painted motifs into textile form. Her imagery was reproduced as postcards in the early 1960s, which brought her work wide public recognition well beyond gallery audiences. Television films about her and her paintings were produced, extending that recognition further.
She held solo exhibitions in Falun (1960) and Köping (1963), and participated in group exhibitions organized by the Dalarnas art association. Stina Sunesson died on 19 August 1998 in Tällberg, the village she had made her home for nearly forty years.
On the auction market, her work appears across Swedish regional houses, including Bukowskis Stockholm, RA Auktionsverket Norrköping, and Gomér & Andersson. The 19 items recorded in the Auctionist database span paintings and prints. Top realized prices reach 11,600 SEK, with the highest international sale recorded at Uppsala Auktionskammare in 2021 for "En sommardag" at the equivalent of approximately 22,000 USD. Lithographs and serigraphs numbered from editions of 350 sell in the 400-750 SEK range, while original gouaches and oils command significantly more.