Erik Olson
Erik Olson ( born May 9, 1901 in Halmstad, Halland, † 15 February 1986) was a Swedish painter.
Life and work
Together with his older brother Axel Erik Olsen developed an early interest in painting and drawing. In 1919 he, along with his brother and his cousin Waldemar Lorentzon, a first exhibition in Halmstad. Beginning of 1924, he traveled with Lorentzon to Paris, where he lived from 1924 to 1935, interrupted by a trip to Italy and the Swedish military service. He studied at the Academie Modern Amédée Ozenfant 1924 to 1927 and was a pupil of Fernand Léger. Olson founded in 1929 with his brother Axel, Waldemar Lorentzon, Stellan Möller and others, the artists association Halmstadsgruppen. He joined a few years later in Paris concretist circles and painted geometric compositions. In the late 1930s he painted his first Surrealist work. 1931, the Abstraction-Création group joined Although ( Abstraction- Creation ), but he turned more and more to surrealism to which by Salvador Dalí reached a heyday in Paris. Olson gave this trend also to the other members of the Halmstad Group. In 1934 he became a member of the Surrealist group in Paris gravity. Dreams and visionary experiences accompanied Erik Olson throughout his life and he placed great emphasis on the artistic design of these visions, which he associated with the Nordic traditions.
In 1935, he moves from Paris to Copenhagen and joined the Danish Surrealist. The following year he moved to the fishing village Taarbæk outside Copenhagen and participates in international surrealist exhibitions in London in 1936 and 1937. Early 1940s he began to experiment in painting in the post-impressionist style. In 1944, he returned to Halmstad.
1959 Erik Olson found their way to the Catholic Church and converted. The last years of his life were filled by religious orders. Many church windows and altarpieces in Sweden come from his workshop. In 1959 he created four windows for the newly inaugurated St. Clement's church in Halmstad. More stained glass windows he designed for Laholm. In 1977 he painted a triptych for the Vatican Museums in Rome.