Special: L-G Nordström
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Few other Scandinavian artists have left such a fundamental imprint on abstract art as Lars-Gunnar ”L-G” Nordström. As one of the most central figures for the breakthrough of concretism in Finland, Nordström stands out with his pure lines and meticulously worked out compositions in elegant, bold colour tones. During his lifetime, he also experienced a major international breakthrough and achieved great success even outside the borders of his native Finland. The carefully assembled collection that is now offered for sale includes 32 works by Nordström that show the artist’s journey from his important early years in the 1950s to the dramatic later motifs created in the 1980s. Lars-Gunnar Nordström’s, or Nubben as he was often called, passion for both art and music united through his brushstrokes into a symphony of rhythmic forms. The artist stated: ”I build art mathematically, as in music, I create music for the eye, with sound and rhythm based on the own mechanics of colours.” According to Nordström, his works should be enjoyed and studied in peace and quiet and with reflection, as they would then appeal to the viewer in their own visual language.
For the young Lars-Gunnar Nordström the choice of pursuing an artistic career seemed obvious right from the start, and during his school years he drew whenever he had the opportunity. In the early sketches from the late 1930s, impulses from the world of jazz, a music genre that caught his interest early on but that he only had limited access to due to the raging world war, are clearly visible. Lars-Gunnar eventually decided to enlist in the military and when he finally returned home, it was a thin and poor young man who took up on painting again. The lack of artist’s materials made him resourceful and persistent. He learned about materials and experimented with tempera colours mixed with egg yolk and tried to find available pigments. Sometimes he was lucky enough to have colour powder sent to him by acquaintances in Sweden. On some rare occasions he managed to get hold of real oil paint and his first paintings date to 1946, strongly influenced by the French Cubism that Nordström had not yet had the chance to experience in reality but only studied in books. In his portraits and still lifes, he worked with cubist forms and experimented with colour as a medium. The public debut came at De Ungas exhibition in 1947 at Konsthallen in Helsinki, where Nordström participated with four drawings representing Cubist still lifes. The reviewers drew attention to his special technique with ink on Japanese paper, one even wrote that one of the main graphic artists was ”the creator of rhythmically alive ink drawings L-G Nordström”. Even in school, Lars-Gunnar impressed with his skills in drawing and painting. Werner West, who taught furniture detailing and construction drawing at the Central School of Art where Lars-Gunnar had been admitted for some time, wrote a letter of recommendation that secured him a traineeship at the interior architect Erik Ullrich’s office in Stockholm. Being able to come to Sweden, a country that had escaped the bombings of the war and in many ways was a free zone beyond all destruction in Europe, was pure heaven for a young artist. Suddenly there was no lack of artist material and Nordström came in contact with other young artists who, like himself, were interested in abstract art, such as Olle Bonniér, Lennart Rodhe and Pierre Olofsson.
Paris, a city that had long been a stronghold of freedom and cultural diversity, captivated Lars-Gunnar Nordström as well as many other young artists in the 20th century. When Lars-Gunnar, in the company of some other young Finnish artists, traveled to Paris for the first time in the late 1940s, his artistry underwent a major change. In the galleries, he was finally able to explore both the Cubists, with whom he was already familiar in a way, but also the Bauhaus artists Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, whose abstract style became decisive for his own painting. At the gallery of avant-garde art dealer Denise René, who was known for showing only geometric abstract art in her premises, he saw for the first time the design language of Victor Vasarely and Alberto Magnelli. Direct and outgoing by nature, Nordström immediately made acquaintances with artists and gallerists. Despite his poor knowledge of French, he soon noticed that concretism did not depend on words to be understood. Several years later, he formulated the vision that he already laid the foundation for during his first time in Paris: ”There is no ideology, mysticism or religion there. I have sought to free myself from all burdensome symbols.”
The days were spent in the galleries or in front of the easel at one of the famous art academies, at night he was searching for more adventure in one of Paris’ jazz clubs. He could not always afford the entrance fee to the clubs, instead he stood along the Seine and listened to the beautiful sound that flowed out into the summer night. Once Nordström returned to Helsinki from his trip to Paris, he was fully convinced that he was to become an artist. He dropped out of his studies to become an interior designer at the Central School, even though only the graduation exam was missing, and instead began preparing for his first solo exhibition. In a small store for artist’s materials on Museigatan in Helsinki he was allowed to show his works, and the same autumn after his return from France the first exhibition in the history of Finland with only non-figurative works was presented to the public.
The turning point in Lars-Gunnar Nordström’s painting towards a completely abstract expression took place after 1952. Despite the public’s negative opinion of non-figurative painting in Finland, Nordström finally abandoned his cubist motifs in order to fully devote himself to abstract art. He believed that ”the line is everywhere in the picture like a tangible skeleton where colour and shape are blood and flesh”. In the very first versions, he often used the colours black, white, red, blue and green. An excellent example is the painting from 1953 which is included in the present sale, one of the artist’s earliest concrete works. In the same year, Lars-Gunnar Nordström exhibited for the first time in Sweden with the exhibition ”Young Finnish Art” at the Art Academy in Stockholm, and met the Swedish concretist Olle Bærtling. Methodically and carefully, he developed his compositions and favoured oil and lacquer paints that gave ”the right optical luster” he was looking for. Repetitions and the constant dialogue between similarities and differences are characteristic of Nordström’s concrete paintings, which are also imbued with a playful freedom. The decade of the 1950s was intense for Nordström, who executed monumental compositions for public places and also participated in a series of notable exhibitions internationally. In America he won the hearts of the public and enjoyed longer stays in New York where music and art seemed to go hand in hand. There was also Piet Mondrian, with his refined and elegant paintings, and the sculptor Alexander Calder, who became one of Nordström’s close friends and a great inspiration for his own sculptures. During the 1960s, Nordström began to include formations of circles into his compositions, another influence from his American artist colleagues. He also spent a lot of time in Sweden during this decade. Concretism finally started to receive recognition when it was shown at some of Stockholm’s leading galleries, such as Galerie Aronowitsch and later at Galerie Konstruktiv Tendens, Galerie Bel’Art and Galerie Christel. During the 1980s, Nordström further developed his concrete expression and made a series of paintings with black and white as primary colours and elements of green (which was his favourite colour!) and blue. A large memorial exhibition of Bærtling was organized in 1981 at Liljevalchs Konsthall in Stockholm where Nordström was invited to participate, a great honor since Bærtling had been both an important colleague and role model. In the years that followed, Lars-Gunnar exhibited almost as many times in Sweden as in Finland, forever inscribing himself as one of the key Nordic artists within concrete art.
Lars-Gunnar Nordström was described by those around him as a charmer with a great appetite for life and all that it had to offer. Art always came first for him and he worked tirelessly, often day and night, and loved the freedom it gave him to decide his own work process. In the discovery of abstract art, he found himself almost spellbound by this fascinating style that seemed so unbounded in its character and persistent both across generations, eras and styles. The concrete art that developed from his first abstract motifs was faithful to Nordström throughout his life, and with surprise he watched when other artists instead tried their way between different -isms. Over the years he was admired and celebrated for his skillful brushwork, masterful technique and brilliant sense of colour both in his home country and internationally. The present collection offers a fantastic opportunity to acquire works by Lars-Gunnar Nordström from a Swedish private collection. ■
Special auction: 26 september 2023 at 6 PM
Saleroom: Nybrogatan 20, Stockholm, Sweden