Roland Kempe

Kempe traveled widely throughout his career, and these journeys shaped his subject matter directly. He was in Spain in 1932, in the United Kingdom from 1936 to 1939, and after the war he moved extensively through Europe between 1946 and 1949, then Egypt in 1950, and Mexico and the United States in 1954. It was Spain that left the deepest mark: bullfighting scenes, Spanish folk life, Mediterranean landscapes, and still lifes with Southern European character became recurring themes in his painting. He approached these subjects through a neo-expressionist sensibility - bold, often blood-red tones set within black contours, color used as emotional weight rather than descriptive fact.

From 1943 to 1953 Kempe was part of the Saltsjo-Duvnas artist colony outside Stockholm, a tight circle that included Olle Nyman, Evert Lundquist, and Staffan Hallstrom. These painters worked in proximity and mutual dialogue, and the colony became one of the more coherent expressions of mid-century Swedish expressionism. Kempe exhibited steadily throughout these decades: at Konstnärshuset in Stockholm (1936), Galerie Moderne (1941), Linköpings Museum (1942), and at numerous venues across Sweden and abroad. His work entered institutional collections at the Nationalmuseum and Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Malmö Museum, and internationally at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and museums in Athens, Moscow, Beijing, and Madrid. His presence in the MoMA collection is confirmed by the work "The Ray" (1949), a piece that demonstrates the formal clarity and chromatic intensity that distinguished his output.

Beyond painting, Kempe was a writer who illustrated his own books, adding a literary dimension to a career already unusually broad in its ambitions. He is credited with several self-illustrated publications, a practice that positioned him within a Swedish tradition of artist-writers where image and text were understood as complementary forms of expression. His work is also documented in the collections of H.M. King Gustaf VI Adolf, pointing to the esteem in which he was held within Swedish cultural life. He died on 13 August 1991 in Stockholm - on his birthday - at the age of 84.

On the Nordic auction market, Kempe's work circulates mainly through regional Swedish houses, with Boras Auktionshall recording the highest volume, followed by Crafoord, Karlstad Hammarö Auktionsverk, and Metropol. Among the 22 items tracked on Auctionist, the categories span paintings, drawings, prints, and mixed media. The top recorded sale reached 2,600 SEK for a signed mixed media work, with oil paintings and lithographs forming the core of what comes to market. His prints - particularly color lithographs - represent an accessible entry point, while his oil paintings offer closer engagement with the neo-expressionist force that defined his most ambitious work.