OLLE SVANLUND. “Le cible jaune” /"Le Silence”.

Oil on canvas, 101 x 82 cm including frame 110 x 90 cm. Signed Svanlund and dated -74.

PROVENANCE
Swedish club, Paris, gift by the artist 1974.

Born in Svängsta, Blekinge, Olle Svanlund showed artistic ambitions early on. After an apprenticeship at a painting workshop in Hamburg, he continued his studies in advertising drawing and arts and crafts in Berlin. In 1929 he moved to Paris where he made a living through work at an art printing house, while also training at the Académie Léger and the Académie Othon Friesz.

Svanlund subsequently found employment as an advertising cartoonist in Paris before returning to Sweden for similar assignments in Stockholm. For a few years in the 1930s he worked as a theatre decorator in France, but the urge to travel soon carried him on to South America. In Brazil, mainly in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, he produced travelogues in text and image for Swedish newspapers and publishers.

Back in Europe, he resumed art studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where he remained until 1943. He held his first solo exhibition in Malmö in 1941, followed by exhibitions in Stockholm (e.g. at Gummesons) and in Ystad. Svanlund also participated in a series of international collection exhibitions in Denmark, the Soviet Union and France.

His early painting consisted of strictly constructed landscapes with sparingly inserted, anonymous figures — often in muted, melancholic colors. During a renewed stay in France, the expression changed towards a more abstract and decorative style, which over time transitioned into an expressive and almost surreal idiom. In Paris, he first lived with his wife, the artist Elisabeth (Kylie) Schram, in Savigny-sur-Orge, near fellow artists Bengt Lindström and Bengt Olson. Later, the couple moved to the Marais quarters. Works begun in Paris were often completed in the summer studio on the Bjäre Peninsula, in his own house Svanelunda.

Alongside painting, Svanlund was a pioneer in textile design. Already in the 1940s, he and his wife started a hand-printing company for wallpaper and fabrics, whose modern and abstract designs attracted attention. In his later artistry he worked widely: with collage, mixed media, enamel, glass, mosaic and also public adornments. His works are characterized by dissolute outlines, lyrical color gamut, and a strong sense of rhythm and form.

Svanlund's first solo exhibition in Paris was held in 1963 at Galerie Riquelme. He also participated in the Swedish Collection Exhibition at the Musée Galliera in 1964 (curated by Gunnar W. Lundberg) as well as in exhibitions in Le Havre, Saint-Étienne and Marcq-en-Barœul. He was exhibited several times at the Salon Réalités Nouvelles and was a regular participant in the exhibitions of the Swedish Club in Paris.

The club's two works by Olle Svanlund — a lithograph and an oil painting — are representative of his surrealist period during the 1960s, with imaginative forms, dreamlike landscapes and a sense of balance between spontaneity and structure.

All lots in this themed auction sold without reserve.