Bengt Lindström

Bengt Karl Erik Lindström (September 3, 1925, Berg Municipality — January 29, 2008, Sundsvall) was a Swedish artist. Lindström was one of Sweden's best known contemporary artists with a characteristic style of distinct colors, often including contorted faces. He had two children, Mariana and Alexandre. In 2003, Lindström became disabled due to a stroke and he became unable to paint. The year 2004 saw the release of a film about Bengt's life: "Lindström - Le Diable de la Couleur et de la Forme" (Lindström – A Hell of a Feeling for Colour and Form). On 29 January 2008, Lindström died at his home in Sundsvall, Sweden.

While working in an atelier in the Alicante region, he completed "Novelda", an album of lithographs featuring poems by Spanish poet Paco Pastor. One of his works, "Winter" made the cover of the first 1996 issue of Telerama, a French weekly magazine.

The inauguration of the Midlanda Contemporary Arts Center in Sweden took place in 1996. This Center maintained the collection of the Bengt and Michèle Lindström Foundation, featuring the entire engravings collection (approximately 800 works) as well as a selection of paintings and sculptures. The collection was later donated and transferred to the Länsmuseet i Västernorrland in Härnösand, Sweden, where a special room was prepared to host "The Great Aesir Gods".

Bengt designed two limited edition watches for Swatch, one called "Temps Zero" in 1995 and "Skritek" in the year 2000.

In the 1990s, the "Y", a monumental sculpture near Midlanda airport in Sweden, got inaugurated. The 6 meter high sculpture "The Wolf", made for PEAB, was inaugurated in Botkyrka.

Bengt completed "Thor's Hammer", a monumental, colorful sculpture in Odenskog. The car painted for Volvo in 1980 has become an integral part of the hammer in the giant god Thor's hand.

1952 : Foire Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, France. 1954 Foire Salon d'Octobre, Paris, France. 1959 New Europe, United States, Switzerland 1961 Salon de Mai, Paris, France. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Ghent, Belgium. 1966 Museum of Modern Art, Göteborg, Sweden. 1967 Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, United States. 1973 Musée Galliera, Paris, France. 1983 Historiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. 1984 Musée Château Comtal, Carcassonne, France. 1986 Museum of Salamanca, Spain. 1990 Centre Culturel de Brest, France. 1992 Musée de Vesoul, Vesoul, France. 1993 Museum de Cognac, Cognac, France. Vasarely Museum, Gordes, France. Pinacothèque de Ravenne, Ravenne, Italy. 1995/2005/2006 Museum of Sundsvall, Sweden. 1996/2007 Museum of Härnosänd, Sweden. Museum of Jokkmok, Sweden. Museum of Örebro Castle, Sweden. 1997 Musée de la Ville, Angers, France. Centre of contemporary art of Midlanda, Sweden 1998 Musée de l'Ardenne, Charleville-Mézières, France. 1999 Centre culturel suédois, Paris, France. 2001 Hamburg International Fair, Germany. 2008 Grönsöö Castle, Enköping, Sweden.

In 1944, he moved to Stockholm to study under the Swedish painter Isaac Grünewald. He also participated in drawing lessons given by Aksel Jörgensen at the Copenhagen Fine Arts School in Denmark. In 1946, Bengt travelled to the United States to study at the Art Institute of Chicago and was inspired there by the work of De Kooning. In 1947, he moved to Paris, where he studied under the French painters André Lhote and Fernand Léger. Bengt was granted a scholarship by the Swedish magazine Aftontidningen, which helped him move into a workshop in Arcueil, France. In 1953, he returned to Paris, to a workshop in Rueil-Malmaison, where he continued the development of his unique style of painting. Soon after, he started collaborating with the Rive Gauche Gallery in Paris and Tooth & Sons Gallery in London. He developed his most known figurative art with masks, gods and monsters in France at Savigny-sur-Orge. As from 1968, he started dividing his time between his workshop in France and his atelier in Sundsvall, Sweden.

Lindström was born in 1925 at Storsjö kapell, Härjedalen, Sweden. He was only three days old when Sámi King Kroik, his godfather, administered the "Baptism of the Earth", where the child is placed between two roots of a tree to grant him protection from the Gods. Bengt grew up in the vast landscape of Sápmi (sometimes referred to as Lapland), with mountain ranges, glistening lakes and endless forests. He went to school in Härnösand, where he started writing short science-fiction stories, became an athlete and started to draw and paint. The Sámi people, as well as local lumberjacks, would tell Bengt about the tales and legends of the Great White North. All this created the basis for the major influence of Sámi culture and traditions in Bengt's work.