ROGER RISBERG (Sweden, Gothenburg, 1956-2011). Model study, signed Roger Risberg, ink drawing.

Image dimensions approx. 42 x 30 cm.

Roger Risberg was born in Gothenburg and studied at the University of Arts, Crafts and Design (Konstfack) in Stockholm between 1979–84. Among his teachers was the satirical cartoonist Lars Hillersberg, who compared Risberg's art to that of the American artist Keith Haring. Risberg's art is primitive, clear-sighted and known for its powerful interpretations of both people and animals.
He had his major breakthrough with a number of solo exhibitions in the late 1980s. Risberg is represented at, among others, the Nationalmuseum, Gothenburg Museum of Art, Bonniers Konsthall and Moderna Museet.
Roger Risberg passed away in 2011, only 55 years old, after a long illness.

"In the early 80s, when the 'De Unga Vilda' (The Young Wild Ones) were in the spotlight, Roger Risberg emerged. He proved to be the only one on Swedish soil who could lay claim to the epithet. His paintings were strong and direct. And without theoretical restraint. From the beginning, he liked to draw himself as various animals, for example an eagle. Alone, vulnerable. A strong theme was love, togetherness, abandonment". Thomas Millroth (Swedish art historian, critic, art curator and author) in his book about Roger Risberg 2011:

"Roger Risberg is an absurdist and a berserker, one of the genuinely odd free spirits on the fringes of the Swedish art scene. A primitive force that, in clarity and confusion, seeks the child and the barbarian beneath our increasingly sophisticated veneer. His paintings are like roughly hewn, gallows-humorous graffiti - a kind of magical or brutally clear sign of the bewilderment, loneliness and vulnerability of our time." (Folke Edwards (Swedish museum director, art critic and author, 'Norrsken 92', Gothenburg Konsthall 1992).