Light Shadows - Ingemar Lööf

It is at the edge of shadow that light appears most clearly. In the paintings of Ingemar Lööf (1929–2007), this becomes a recurring motif: rooms where light breaks through darkness and where figures gather in a quiet, almost dreamlike presence. A visual world marked by concentration and contemplation – now presented in this thematic auction at Magasin 1 in Frihamnen.
Born and based in Kristinehamn, Lööf studied at Otto Sköld's painting school and subsequently at the Royal University College of Fine Arts from 1948 to 1953. With Kristinehamn as his base, he drew inspiration throughout his career from travels to, among other places, Spain and Mexico. Yet his visual world remained centred around a handful of recurring motifs: the studio, the self-portrait and the rooms where human figures appear as shadowy presences.
In Lööf's painting, the room becomes a bearer of atmosphere. Interiors open towards sources of light – a window, a reflection or a streak of colour – while figures emerge from half-shadow. In Nattspegling, the mood intensifies within a pictorial space where reflections and pools of light break through a muted field of colour. In Samtal, figures gather around a table; their contours dissolve into the paint, suggesting a psychological situation rather than a concrete narrative.
It is in this balance between darkness and light that Lööf's painting finds its distinctive character. The shadows are never entirely closed but carry an inner light – a faint yet enduring shimmer that lends the works a meditative and timeless quality. The auction's title, Ljusa skuggor – Luminous Shadows – refers to precisely this duality.

Although Lööf's painting is firmly rooted in a modern idiom, one can sense how the chiaroscuro and concentrated figure scenes of the Old Masters echo through his images: in the darkened rooms, in figures stepping forward from shadow, and in the precise orchestration of light that guides the viewer's gaze. In Lööf's work, these traditions are transformed into a dissolved and atmospheric painting in which space, light and human presence merge into one.
Taken together, the auctions offer a deepened portrait of an artistic practice where collecting and creating meet – where the pictorial traditions of history are reflected in a personal and contemporary art.