Öyvind Fahlström
Kammakargatan 8B, 111 40 Stockholm, Sweden
Öyvind Fahlström studied at Whitlockska Samskolan from 1939 to 1948.
11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, United States
The Museum of Modern Art in New York City organized a large retrospective of Öyvind Fahlström artworks in 1969.
Öyvind Fahlström at work.
Öyvind Fahlström
Öyvind Fahlström in his New York studio with his painting 'Sitting'. Photo by Billy Klüver.
Öyvind Fahlström. Photo by Jack Mitchell.
The ‘World Trade Monopoly (B, large)’ artwork by Öyvind Fahlström purchased at Bukowskis auction house in Stockholm for $600,718 in 2014.
Kammakargatan 8B, 111 40 Stockholm, Sweden
Öyvind Fahlström studied at Whitlockska Samskolan from 1939 to 1948.
11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, United States
The Museum of Modern Art in New York City organized a large retrospective of Öyvind Fahlström artworks in 1969.
The ‘World Trade Monopoly (B, large)’ artwork by Öyvind Fahlström purchased at Bukowskis auction house in Stockholm for $600,718 in 2014.
Öyvind Fahlström at work.
Öyvind Fahlström
Öyvind Fahlström in his New York studio with his painting 'Sitting'. Photo by Billy Klüver.
Öyvind Fahlström. Photo by Jack Mitchell.
(with a photo collage)
with a photo collage
artist painter printmaker author poet
Ethnicity:
Öyvind Fahlström’s father, Frithjof Fahlström, came from Norway and the artist’s mother, Karin Kronvall, was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
Öyvind Fahlström was born on December 28, 1928, in São Paulo, Brazil. He was the only child of Frithjof Fahlström and Karin Kronvall.
Fahlström spent his early years in São Paulo, Niteroi and Rio de Janeiro. At the age of eleven, Öyvind came to Stockholm to his distant relatives.
Öyvind Fahlström received his secondary education in Stockholm where he came in 1939. He enrolled at the private school for foreigners called Whitlockska Samskolan in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War. He was a brilliant student and finished school in 1948.
A year later, Fahlström entered Stockholm University where he had studied classics and the history of art for three years.
The start of Öyvind Fahlström’s career can be counted from 1948 when he joined the Swedish Army to complete compulsory military service. After World War II, he contributed to various Swedish periodicals as a writer, critic and journalist. He also wrote poetry, plays and made translations. By 1952, the artist created his first paintings.
A year later, Fahlström presented the room-sized drawing ‘Opera’ at his debut solo exhibition held at Galleria Numero in Florence. This year was also marked by a creation of the manifesto for concrete poetry called ‘Hätila ragulpr på fåtskliaben’ (Hipy Papy Bthuthdth Thuthda Bthuthdy: Manifesto for Concrete Poetry). It was published in Swedish the next year. Later, the English translation appeared.
This period, the artist worked on a large-size painting called ‘Ade-Ledic-Nander II’ where he placed hieroglyphic signs into big groups. The artist also incorporated in his works some heroes from popular comics.
The second solo show of the artist was organized in 1955 at Galerie Aesthetica in Stockholm. The same year, Fahlström came to Paris where he spent three years. While in the capital of France, the artist collaborated for the first time with Galerie Daniel Cordier. In 1958, he participated at the Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings and Sculpture, also known as the Carnegie International. Three years later, Öyvind Fahlström relocated to New York City where he had a studio in the same building where Jasper Johns worked.
While in the city, Fahlström collaborated with many artists and continued to develop his own style. It was this time when he created the first works from the Sitting series. In 1962, he exhibited at the Sidney Janis Gallery which would represent his art the following years organizing regular exhibitions. Trying to erase the boundaries between various mediums, he organized so-called happenings at Moderna Museet in Stockholm and on Swedish television.
During the 1960s, Öyvind Fahlström pursued his activity as an author and screenwriter. He produced many plays, such as ‘Hammarskjold on God’, ‘Oswald Comes Back’, ‘Forgive Hitler’, film and TV series screenplays, documentaries and radio broadcasts. Among the important exhibitions of this time were the 1965 Venice Biennale, the 1968 Documenta in Kassel, Germany and the 1969 traveling retrospective organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
Fahlström continued to exhibit regularly in the United States, Germany, France, Italy and Stockholm till the end of his life.
Öyvind Fahlström was an accomplished artist who managed to obtain the worldwide recognition not only as a painter but as a talented author and poet. He managed to fascinate the audience using different mediums altogether.
During his lifetime, Fahlström received many fellowships and awards, including Prize for a silkscreen print at the Tokyo International Biennial Exhibition of Prints.
Many exhibitions commemorating the art of Fahlström are organized nowadays. The large collection of his art can be found at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm among others.
In 2014, a work by Fahlström called ‘World Trade Monopoly (B, large)’ was purchased at Bukowskis auction house in Stockholm for $600,718.
Öyvind Fahlström became popular on Swedish television after he appeared during a national broadcast with a pipe supposed to be filled with hashish.
Öyvind Fahlström was married three times.
His first wife became Birgitta Tamm in 1952. The couple had lived together till 1958.
Two years later, the artist married Barbro Östlihn, a Pop painter from Sweden. Öyvind and Barbro divorced in six years.
In 1976, Fahlström married Sharon Avery who became his last wife.
