BAERTLING, OLLE

* 6.12.1911 Halmstad, † 2.5.1981 Stockholm

Olle Baertling was born on 6 December 1911 in Halmstad, Sweden. During his childhood he moved to Stockholm, where he spent most of his life and died in 1981. At the beginning of the 1950s, he regularly visited Paris, the most important city for art and artists at the time. He worked in the studios of André Lhote and Fernand Léger and became friends with Auguste Herbin. In 1952 he joined the artist group ‘Groupe d'Espace’ based at the Galerie Denise René. Initially committed to expressive Nordic painting, Baertling developed his own abstract style of open forms in the 1950s. From the mid-1950s he also worked in sculpture, including major projects in Düsseldorf, Abu Dhabi and elsewhere.

In 1963 he took part in the 7th Sao Paulo Biennale. Olle Baertling is one of the few Swedish artists to have enjoyed success in the international art market.