Roger Risberg - A Swedish Expressionist III

Crafoord Auktioner presents a collection of works by the artist and printmaker Roger Risberg.

Born in Gothenburg, he studied at Konstfack (University of Arts, Crafts and Design) in Stockholm between 1979 and 1984. Among his teachers was the satirical cartoonist Lars Hillersberg, who likened Risberg’s art to that of the American artist Keith Haring. Risberg’s art is primitive and clear-sighted, known for its powerful interpretations of both people and animals.
He achieved his major breakthrough with a series of solo exhibitions in the late 1980s. His work is represented in collections such as the Nationalmuseum, the Gothenburg Museum of Art, Bonniers Konsthall, and Moderna Museet.
Roger Risberg passed away in 2011, at the age of only 55, following a long illness.

"In the early 1980s, when the 'New Wild' (De Unga Vilda) movement was in the spotlight, Roger Risberg emerged. He proved to be the only one on the Swedish scene who could truly lay claim to that label. His paintings were strong and direct—and devoid of theoretical restraint. From the start, he often depicted himself as various animals, such as an eagle: solitary and vulnerable. Key themes included love, couplehood, and abandonment." — Thomas Millroth (Swedish art historian, critic, curator, and author), writing in his 2011 book on Roger Risberg:

"Roger Risberg is an absurdist and a berserker, one of the genuinely eccentric mavericks on the fringes of the Swedish art scene. A primitive force that, amidst clarity and confusion, seeks the child and the barbarian beneath our increasingly sophisticated veneer. His paintings resemble rough-hewn, gallows-humorous graffiti—a kind of magical or brutally clear signifier of the bewilderment, loneliness, and vulnerability of our time." (Folke Edwards: Swedish museum professional, art critic, and author, "Norrsken 92", Gothenburg Art Hall 1992).