Evert Ernst Erland Olof Lundquist (17 July 1904 – 4 November 1994) was a Swedish painter and graphic artist. He was born in Stockholm, the son of a railway official, Ernst Lundquist and Olga Eugenia Maria Charlotta Lundquist (born Björck). Lundquist, byway of his mother's family, was a relative of famed singer Johanna Maria "Jenny" Lind and the painter Oscar Björck. He was the youngest of the three children; his brother Edvard was born in 1898 and sister Elsa in 1902. The family home was located in Stockholm at 9 Tegnérgatan. His early life has been described as middle class, proper and calm.
Lundquist had bouts of depression and illness which caused delays in his education. His depression was often exacerbated by the long and dark months of autumn in Sweden. Lundquist had experienced feelings of "gloom" as early as 1920. By 1929, he had entered into a rest home on the island of Lidingö to recuperate. Recurring depression, primarily during the autumn season, will become a reoccurring event in Lundquist's life. These personal adversities were generally unknown to the public as Lundquist created a public narrative that presented him in a style that he favored. His desire to obscure and hide the unpleasant and uncontrolled aspects of his life has led to suggestions of a parallel/corollary to his artwork.
He lived and worked in , on the outskirts of Stockholm. Here during the late 1940s and early 1950s, Evert Lundquist along with his wife and fellow artist Ebba Reutercrona, joined artists Roland Kempe and in living together at Olle Nyman's family home in Saltsjö-Duvnäs. This grouping of artists began to be identified as the "Saltsjö-Duvnäs Group". The group was rather loosely based and followed no set ideology or philosophical premise. They were, however, centered on an exploration of the material nature of painting, "from the small perspective, with the point of departure in the poetry of rural everyday life."
In the first part of the 1980s, a gradual deterioration in Lundquist's vision began leading him to paint less. Lundquist used labels with very large text attached to his tubes of paint to facilitate his recognition of the colors they contained. This helped the artist to eliminate any errors in his work, which was of critical importance as his limited eyesight forced him to finish any painting in one single session. The last known paintings by Lundquist occurred in 1989–1990.
In 1984, Lundquist published his autobiography, From the Life of a Painter (in Swedish ). The autobiography reaffirmed much of his personal "narrative" which Lundquist preferred to share publicly.
Evert Ernst Erland Olof Lundquist died on 4 November 1994 in Stockholm.
Education/educator in the arts Lundquist remembered creating his first painting at age fourteen in 1918. The work was a man with red hair which he created using his mother's porcelain paints. As a private student, Lundquist studied for and received his bachelor's degree in 1923; he then felt free to pursue his interest in painting. Beginning on 15 January 1924, Lundquist formally began his education in the arts at Carl Wilhelmson's painting school in Stockholm. Lundquist remembered the pleasure he took in his realization that his technical skills were developing and also his surprise when his teacher introduced a nude model for drawing class.
He then briefly attended Edward Berggren's painting school. Berggren had established the school with friend and fellow artist Gottfrid Larsson in 1920. Later in May 1924, Lundquist traveled to Wimereux, France to study plaster under artist Jean Cottenet, and to learn French. (Cottenet would shortly, thereafter, go on to teach Henri Cartier-Bresson after his parents, frustrated with Henri's thrice failing his baccalaureate exams, gave into his desire to become an artist.) While in Wimereux, Lundquist lived at "La Ruche", a villa owned by the Cottenet family. During the summer, he painted his first landscape during a car trip to Les Neyrolles, France. Lundquist recalled the period well and claimed this was how he acquired the "French Spirit" which he felt never left him.
He then went on to the esteemed Académie Julien in Paris, where he not only took notice of the dirty windows and clutter but also of the school's success in teaching world renown artists. Studying under Paul Albert Laurens, Lundquist drew from ten a.m. to four p.m., working for several days to produce a drawing that would be considered "complete". Lundquist also recalled his time spent wandering the halls of the Louvre Museum to study important artists as being significant to his artistic education
In May 1925, he returned to Sweden, living in Berg, and immersed himself in philosophy and the Nordic culture. By August, he was enrolled at Berggren's painting school in what was ostensibly a preparatory course for his eventual admission into the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. In September, he enrolled at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts (1925–1931) where, once again, he was a student under Carl Wilhelmson. Lundquist's acceptance into the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts made him feel that the world was open to him; he called it a "high". While studying with Wilhelmson, a young Lundquist was advised by another student to find his own style instead of trying to imitate Leonardo da Vinci. Wilhelmson, overhearing the conversation, rejected the student's advice. He felt in Lundquist's quest to become self-realized, it was important to "love something higher (and to) study the masters." Lundquist recalled that Wilhelmson was one of the few people, if not the only, who believed in his abilities. Nonetheless, Lundquist applied and was accepted into the school's decorative department where Olle Hjortzberg was his teacher. Lundquist felt this "experiment' was unsuccessful and "bore meager fruit." He cited his "artistic snobbery" from preventing him from creating the pastiches required of him. Despite having, on occasion, harvested "meager fruit", Lundquist believed his time at the academy was well spent. Beyond his education as an artist, the academy had fostered a break with his introspection and shyness, and he had made many good friends. During his time there, Lundquist was given the nickname "Ludde", a name his friends and fellow artists would continue to use during his lifetime.
In 1959, Lundquist began to teach painting at The Gerlesborgskolan School of Fine Arts. In 1960, he would also teach at Konsthögskolan (Royal Institute of Art), a position he would continue in for the next ten years.
Recognition, exhibitions and awards (partial) His first exhibition was at the Konstnärshuset in Stockholm in 1934, but he became popular only in the 1940s.
Noted art historian Olle Granath felt, "Evert Lundquist's breakthrough as an artist came with an exhibition at Konstnärshuset (Swedish Artists' Association) in 1941, when he was thirty-seven years old."
An equally significant retrospective was presented by Konstnärshuset only three years later in 1944 at the Royal Academy of Art. The exhibition has been described as a major breakthrough with the Swedish public. The retrospective received positive reviews and widespread coverage of the event. This attention was followed by increased public recognition for Lundquist.
In 1956 Lundquist suggested and created a mosaic piece titled . The mosaic extends throughout three floors of the then newly built town hall in Skellefteå.
According to friend and fellow artist Cliff Holden, Lundquist enjoyed holding a retrospective every ten years or so at the Stockholm Academy of Art. The retrospective in 1957 generated a level of admiration that had "not been seen even in Sweden for a long time."
In the late 1950s and early 1960s he participated in exhibitions in Paris, London and Milan.
Lundquist was chosen to represent Sweden at the IV Bienal do Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo, Brazil in 1957. Artworks that were selected for inclusion, including works by Lundquist, were destroyed by fire aboard the transport ship carrying them. The catalog for the Bienal, with a forward to Lundquist's works written by Dr. Hugo Zuhr, list five works by Lundquist; A Arvore (1949), O Passaro (1956), Criança Comendo (1957), Nos Campos (1957) and Corpo De Boi (1957). While Cliff Holden states that all of Lundquist's works for the Bienal were lost in this fire, some contemporary literature states the loss of only three paintings.
The Tate Gallery, in 1958, acquired Lundquist's painting Woman in Red. With this acquisition, Lundquist became one of only two Swedish artists then held in the collection, the other being Edvard Munch.
Lundquist was awarded the Prince Eugen Medal for painting in 1961. The Renaissance Society of Chicago hosts a Lundquist Exhibition from 13 to 31 May 1961.
The Museum of Modern Art's Committee on the Museum's Collections (serving at the request of MOMA's chairman James Thrall Soby) voted to acquire and to add Lundquist's Pottery Number Nine, oil on canvas, to its collection in 1961.
In 1964, Lundquist was presented the Guggenheim award. During the same year he served as the representative for Sweden at the Venice Biennale in 1964.
Lundquist's artwork was presented in exhibitions at the Dunn International. The Tate Gallery included Lundquist in their 1964 exhibition "54–64, Paintings & Sculpture of a Decade".
In 1974, a Lundquist retrospective was held at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden.
In 1980, Lundquist exhibited with fellow artist (and spouse) Ebba Reutercrona.
In 2010 the Moderna Museet, with curator Fredrik Liew, launched an exhibition of Lundquist's works. This innovative and far-reaching exhibit sought to remove the constrictions of previously held interpretations, not only of Lundquist's work, but of Lundquist himself.
Acquisition of Woman in Red by the Tate Gallery in 1958 The Tate Gallery was created in 1897 and has since amassed a collection of objects from 1500 AD to the present time. The artists chosen to be part of the modern and contemporary art collection are chosen for merit and their contributions to the world of art. In the late 1950s Lundquist's fellow artist and supporter Cliff Holden, who had long believed that Lundquist was one of only two artists who could legitimately represent Sweden internationally, began a campaign to encourage the Tate to accept Lundquist's work into its collection. Woman in Red, a work from the collection of Nils Tesch, was accepted into the collection. Previous to this acquisition, the only other Swedish painter to be collected by the Tate was Edvard Munch. The work titled Woman in Red has been part of the Tate collection since that time.
Interpretations of Lundquist's style and artworks