LARS SPAAK. Violin player, oil on panel, signed.

Day dimensions 92 x 49 cm. Frame dimensions 107 x 64 cm.

In Lars Spaak's painting, visionary thinking is combined with formal rigor. It is a painting that is neither bound to the naturalistic tradition nor to the spontaneity of pure expression, but which consciously searches for an artistic language in which the human and the cosmic meet in clarity and concentration.

Lars Oskar Spaak (b. 1927) is a Swedish artist whose diverse artistry spans more than half a century. Spaak was trained in painting at the Grünewald School of Painting in Stockholm (1943—1946) and further under the direction of Pierre Olofsson at the Académie Libre. His painting is characterized by a poetic and philosophical approach, in which form and color are not only visual means but carry meanings that seem drawn from a kind of cosmic symbolic language. He describes art as a “signal carrier” — a place where universal rhythms and timeless expressions move through color and form. This is reflected in his paintings in which lines, surfaces and color fields interact in spatial and rhythmic compositions, often with an architectural structure and technological appropriation reflecting the idiom of the modern century.

Through evening studies and a single-minded pursuit, he managed to build up a solid artistic education and broke through. He drew inspiration from the library's art literature and from artists such as Gösta Adrian-Nilsson and Fernand Léger. Spaak has exhibited both in Sweden and internationally, including in Paris, Brussels, New York, Nuremberg and Stockholm. His work is represented in several museum collections, such as Kalmar Art Museum, Västerås Art Museum and Örebro County Museum.