Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd

When Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd (1934-2016) put down pen and brush for good, he ended an exceptionally sharp, ingenious, inventive and unpredictable artistry. Over a career that spanned more than six decades, he moved deliberately and unforced between different styles and genres. In seemingly simple forms, complex and apt commentaries on the world around were created.

The exhibition highlights Reuterswärd's involvement with other people and shows a large number of the portraits he created of his artist colleagues. Here are pictures of those he knew well but also of those who lived before him. Méret Oppenheim, Francis Bacon, Dorothea Tanning and Torsten Andersson join forces with Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein, Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso — all of whom aroused the admiration of Reuterswärd.

Reuterswärd did not want to depict its models solely on the basis of their physical attributes. Instead, he strove to capture their character. He wanted to highlight the mood each person exudes — and even when he did it with humor, the images never landed in caricatures. He could mix wildly between realism and fantasy but always made sure that the portraits became legible and clear. The style was adapted to the model's own way of being and acting.

In order to understand Reuterswärd's portrait art, it is valuable to follow his journey in and out of a series of aliases, which often aimed to provide tart commentary on the increasingly commercialised art industry. During the nine years he took a vacation from himself (advertised in 1963 in the New York Herald Tribune), among other things, the famous art dealer Arnold Forel Pratt-Müller was born. He had given up interest in art itself and instead focused on what he considered his clients to be most interested in — the artists' signatures — even those a kind of portrait.

Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd (1934-2016, born in Stockholm, working in Bussigny, Switzerland and Landskrona, among others). Educated at the Royal Institute of Art where he was also professor of painting 1965-69. Represented in the collections of a number of museums worldwide, including Centre Pompidou in Paris, MoMA in New York, Sprengel Museum in Hannover and Moderna Museet in Stockholm. His sculpture Non-Violence, which depicts a revolver with a clenched barrel and was created in reaction to the assassination of John Lennon, stands outside the UN headquarters in New York.

^{Photo: John Nelander}