Rune Jansson

In 1947, Jansson travelled to France with the painter Eddie Figge, whom he had married two years earlier. That year abroad proved decisive: in Paris he encountered the work of Hans Hartung and was drawn into the orbit of Art Informel, the European post-war current that rejected geometric abstraction in favour of spontaneous gesture, raw texture, and emotional immediacy. Jansson brought that sensibility back to Sweden and became one of the movement's earliest Swedish proponents.

His debut exhibition came in 1949 at Lilla Paviljongen in Stockholm, where critics responded warmly to his gestural, layered compositions. Over the following decades he exhibited across Sweden and internationally, building a body of work that ranges from oils on canvas and panel to colour lithographs. His printmaking often returned to the archipelago of his childhood: islands, skerries, sea-light rendered through abstracted form rather than literal description.

In 1958 Jansson joined the faculty of Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH), teaching drawing to architecture students. He was appointed Professor at Konstakademien (the Royal Academy of Fine Arts) in 1969, a position that confirmed his standing within the Swedish art establishment. His work entered the permanent collections of Moderna Museet and Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Malmö Museum, Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Nasjonalgalleriet in Oslo, and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, among others.

Jansson continued working well into old age. He died in Stockholm on 10 September 2014 at the age of 95.

On the Swedish auction market, Jansson's paintings and graphics appear regularly at the major houses. Stockholms Auktionsverk and Bukowskis account for the largest share of lots. Across 33 recorded auction appearances on Auctionist, his top result stands at 8,300 SEK for the work "Horisont", with other oils and mixed-media pieces typically selling in the 700–2,000 SEK range. Demand is steady among collectors of Swedish post-war abstraction.