KunstenaarSwedish
Bo Åke Adamsson
3 actieve items
Bo Åke Adamsson was born on June 22, 1941, in the Maria Magdalena parish of Stockholm. His formation as an artist straddled two countries and two institutions. In the early 1960s he studied briefly at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, then received a place at the Reial Academia de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi in Barcelona, where he studied from 1963 to 1967. The years in Spain shaped both his technical range and his eye for figurative work. He later returned to the Royal Academy in Stockholm between 1975 and 1977 specifically to deepen his knowledge of bronze casting - a discipline that would become central to some of his most distinctive output.
After settling in Tärna, outside Sala in Västmanland, Adamsson made an old church school his home and studio. The rural setting did nothing to limit his reach: over a career spanning more than six decades he has shown work in galleries across Sweden and in most of Europe's major cities, as well as in New York. Art critic Ulf Liljedahl, writing in Upsala Nya Tidning in 1972, described his technique as possessing, from an art historical perspective, a rarely seen brilliance.
His practice moves across three distinct areas. In oil painting he works primarily in a figurative mode - interior scenes, figures, and compositions that recall the clarity of mid-century European painting without being bound to any single movement. His graphic work, including signed and numbered lithographs, follows a parallel path and accounts for a significant portion of his auction market presence. His sculptural work is perhaps the most unusual strand: his chess set, produced in sand-cast bronze and gilt brass through a collaboration with Skultuna Mässingsbruk - one of the world's oldest surviving brass foundries - has appeared repeatedly at major Swedish auction houses, including Bukowskis.
Adamsson is represented in the collections of the Nationalmuseum and Moderna museet in Stockholm, the Västerås Art Museum, the Aguéli Museum in Sala, the Swedish Parliament, and the Köping Museum. He was also represented in the collections of King Gustav VI Adolf and King Carl XVI Gustaf. He received a cultural scholarship from Sala Municipality in 1993.
In recent years he has introduced his practice to a wider audience through TikTok, where his studio videos have accumulated over 50 million views and reached the platform's international list of breakthrough discoveries in 2023. For an artist in his early eighties, it is a reminder that the work itself - the process of making, the handling of materials - is what holds attention.
At auction, Adamsson's works appear across a range of house types, with activity at Höganäs Auktionsverk, Stockholms Auktionsverk Sickla, and through Auctionet. His lithographs dominate the secondary market, with recent results including a Porschar litografi at SEK 850 and a Golf litografi at SEK 550. Oil paintings such as the figurscen have reached SEK 800. The price range reflects the accessible end of the Swedish graphic art market, with consistent demand for his signed prints.