Rune Hagberg - "Composition" - tempera on paper, original frame

About Rune Hagberg

Rune Hagberg (Uppsala, Sweden 1924 - Härnösand, Sweden 2015) was a self-taught Swedish painter, writer and sculptor regarded as one of the leading figures in what is known as spontaneity and informal painting.

He was born in Uppsala in 1924, son of a railway official Sven Hagberg and Ceres Ruthström. in the late 1940’s Hagberg participated in exhibitions, wrote his first articles in the mid-1950s and was invited to exhibit in Japan as early as 1955 by a group of painters and calligraphers there.

Hagberg's meditative Informalism is positioned between Concretism and Expressionism of the 1950s. His work reflects a persistent and consistent exploration of silence and enclosure. In his practice, he approached these states through a range of techniques rooted in painting and drawing. Deeply influenced by Zen Buddhism and the calligraphic trends of his time, he initially worked with ink on paper in large-scale works during the 1950’s.

Eventually, Hagberg's practice came to focus on a gradual loosening of the picture surface, a kind of elimination of the sheet of paper, as if to approach the idea of nothingness. This exploration later found expression in sculptural objects.

Rune Hagberg has had a long series of exhibitions in his home country Sweden and abroad and is represented at the Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art, Stockholm, Moderna Museet, Stockholm and Göteborgs Konstmuseum, among others.