ArtistSwedish
Ulf Trotzig
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Ulf Peter Gustav Trotzig was born on 11 June 1925 in Föllinge, Jämtland, and grew up in Kristianstad, where his father worked as a provincial physician. After completing his school-leaving examination in 1945, he enrolled at Valands School of Fine Arts in Gothenburg, studying under Nils Nilsson and Endre Nemes from 1946 to 1951. A formative summer journey to Spain and France followed, with further study in Paris under the sculptor Ossip Zadkine. These early years laid the groundwork for an artistic practice that moved steadily toward abstraction.
In 1954 Trotzig returned to Paris to study printmaking under Johnny Friedlaender, and by autumn 1955 he and his wife, the writer Birgitta Trotzig, had settled in Villers-le-Bel outside the city. The fourteen years they spent in France were productive: Trotzig exhibited at the Museo d'Arte Moderna in São Paulo in 1957, was represented at the Paris print gallery La Hune from 1959, and showed at Galerie Gammel Strand in Copenhagen, Malmö Museum, and Gummesons konsthall in Stockholm. When the couple returned to Sweden in 1969 and began spending summers on Öland, the island's flat light and open coastline became a direct source for his imagery.
Three motifs - the bird, the woman, and the tree - run through virtually his entire output, cycling between emphasis across different decades. Birds, and especially floating bird-like bodies with spread wings, became the most recognisable element from the early 1970s onward, functioning less as naturalistic subjects than as vessels for rhythmic energy and movement. His work in oil was matched by an equally sustained output in graphics; lithographs, etchings, and mixed-media works on paper make up a substantial part of his catalogue. Early influences included Bruno Liljefors, while mid-career work drew from Cézanne, Bonnard, and Matisse in its handling of colour and surface.
Trotzig's work entered the collections of MoMA New York, Moderna Museet Stockholm, and Nationalmuseum Stockholm, and his prints were shown internationally across Scandinavia and Europe. In 1996 he was awarded the Prince Eugen Medal, Sweden's highest honour for artistic achievement. He died on 19 October 2013 in Lund.
On the Nordic auction market, Trotzig appears most consistently at Garpenhus Auktioner, Bukowskis Stockholm, and Helsingborgs Auktionskammare. The 54 lots recorded on Auctionist span oils, lithographs, charcoal drawings, and mixed-media works. Prices for oils range from around 1,200 SEK for smaller works to 15,000 SEK for a larger forest-edge painting titled "Skogsbryn". A signed and numbered lithograph (71/125) reached 1,513 EUR at a Finnish house. Works in graphics tend to trade in the 1,000–5,000 SEK band, while larger canvases in good condition command the upper end of his price range.