Biography
“Karl Axel Pehrson is a painter, graphic artist and a sculptor. When he paints he depicts the light and the summer. He paints landscapes of his own invention, plants and animals (preferably insects and first and foremost beetles). He is a master of imagination and enjoys life.
He began with abstract painting which was filled with motion and consisted of different colour fields cutting into each other. Since the beginning of the 1960’s he has been influenced by the forms and colours of plants and insects.
Karl Axel Pehrson was born in 1921. His mother brought up Karl Axel and his seven siblings alone after the death of his father in a road accident in 1922 when Karl Axel, being the youngest child, was just ten months old. It was a close-knit family. In the evenings the children gathered in the big house in Örebro to read aloud and play music.
In the winters he went to school in Karolinska Läroverket (an old traditional grammar school in Örebro). Drawing soon became his favourite subject. He was also lucky enough to have an unusually inspiring teacher, Sven Hemmel, who tried new ways of teaching and used reproductions of paintings by for example Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Miro to make the students interested in modern art.
After his first year at Karolinska Läroverket Karl Axel interrupted his studies. His mother had then accepted his plans of becoming an artist. But first he was supposed to make an educational journey together with his eldest brother Karl Erik to Austria. This was in 1936.
In the autumn of 1937 he rented a room in Stockholm and began his studies at the Edward Berggren school of art. Already in the spring of 1938 he left this school to study at Otte Sköld’s instead. There he met his wife to be, the young painter Birgit Nilsson.
In 1940 he was admitted to the Academy of Art in Stockholm. He studied there until 1946 with an interruption from 1942 to 1944 when he did his military service. He did not like the army and in order not to be bored to death he began a strange pastime activity. When he was on leave he walked around to all the haberdasher’s in Stockholm buying buttons which he carefully classified according to colour, size, material and the number of holes in them.
He also painted, but he destroyed most of it. His brother Karl Gustaf could insulate his whole garage using the panels that Karl Axel had discarded. During the last years at the Academy of Art he studied for Sven Erixon. The atmosphere around Sven Erixon was stimulating because of the enthusiasm that he conveyed to his students. He wanted them to follow their impulses, no matter where they took them. A lot of knowledge was also spread by a student whose name was Lennart Rodhe. He had studied for several years at the Rostrup Boyesen school of art in Copenhagen and there he had become thoroughly acquainted with the classical tradition of painting. His ideas appealed to Karl Axel’s systematic mind.
Karl Axel has always worked very methodically. In the same way that he had collected buttons he now began even more eagerly to collect beetles and forms. As soon has he had found a new form, perhaps while he was doodling while talking on the telephone, he saved it in his “Book of Forms”. The forms that appear in his paintings at this time have in other words not cropped up while he was painting.
In the spring of 1947 the legendary exhibition Young Art took place. A new generation had established itself. There were among others Lennart Rodhe, Pierre Olofsson, Olle Bonniér and Karl Axel Pehrson.
In April 1954 Karl Axel Pehrson had his first separate exhibition at Galerie Blanche. At this exhibition there were not only water-colour paintings and oil-paintings but also a number of sculptures. They were, unlike the paintings, revolting and obscene. There were tumours, shrivelled body parts, warts etc. Karl Axel Pehrson continued sculpturing for many years. But eventually he became less provocative than he had been at the exhibition at Galerie Blanche.
Music has always accompanied Karl Axel through his life. He played the piano in a local jazz band already during his military service.”
The paragraphs above are free translations of texts taken from Ulf Linde’s book about Karl Axel Pehrson.
More information about Karl Axel Pehrson:
The Karl Axel Pehrson Foundation
Selected Exhibitions
2013
“Bird, Fish or Inbetween”, Örebro länsmuseum, Sweden
2011
Bror Hjorths Hus, Uppsala, Sweden (presentation in Swedish)
Norrköpings Art Museum, Sweden
2010
Örebro länsmuseum, Sweden
2006
Thielska galleriet, Stockholm, Sweden
2005
Konstnärshuset, Stockholm, Sweden
2004
Konstens hus, Luleå,, Sweden
2003
Borås Museum of Art, Sweden
Nässjö Museum, Sweden
2002
“Fantasy and reality”, an exhibition of the art of graphics, Djakarta, Indonesia, arranged by Gallery Astley in collaboration with the Swedish embassy
2000
Gallery Argo, Stockholm, Sweden
1992
Retrospective exhibition, The Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm, Sweden
1988
Galleri Astley, Uttersberg, Sweden
Third solo exhibition Thielska galleriet, Stockholm, Sweden
1982
Second solo exhibition, Thielska galleriet, Stockholm, Sweden
1977
First solo exhibition, Thielska galleriet, Stockholm, Sweden
1973
Galerie Astley, Uttersberg, Sweden
1972
“Fantasy and Reality”, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden
1955
Swedish Abstract, travelling exhibition arranged by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, U.S.A.
1948, 1949, 1950
“Realités Nouvelles”, group exhibition, Paris, France
Selected Public Commissions
1978
Dome painting at Thielska galleriet, Stockholm, Sweden
1974
Designed two tapestries for the head office of the Bank of Sweden.
Painting the Diploma for Sir Anthony Hewish and Sir Martin Ryle, the Nobel Prize winners in Physics that year.
1972
A painting and two sculptures for the airport of Sturup, Sweden.
1967-1968
Sculpture “Non-existing Animals”, Gärdets underground station, Stockholm, Sweden
1964
Designed the Golden Beetle – “Guldbaggen”, price for the Swedish film-Oscar
1957-1958
Wall painting Svenska Handelsbanken´s head office, Stockholm, Sweden
1954
Wall painting, Astra, Södertälje, Sweden
Kvartalets konstnär – Enjoy Scandinavian Art
- Karl Axel Pehrson – The Artist of the Quarter Summer 2011 – Bror Hjorts Hus (presentation in Swedish)
- A visit to the artist Karl Axel Pehrson – The Artist of the Quarter Autumn 2002
The content of this biography which relates to the years before 2005 has been produced together with Karl Axel Pehrson.