Olle Baertling

Born Halmsted, Sweden on Dec. 6th, 1911. Died in Stockholm on May 2nd, 1981

Also Solo-shows at Galerie Bel'Art: 1981 and 1985.

Baertling was born in Halmstad on the Swedish west-coast in 1911 and moved to Stockholm in 1928, where he worked in a bank and painted in his spare time. As an amateur artist his work was figurative and Nordic expressionist in style before he was influenced by the work of Matisse and van Gogh. Baertling married in 1939 and spent 1947 in England, where his studies of the city became increasingly abstract. His formal training took place in Paris the following year where his studied under André Lhote and Fernand Léger, and he held his first solo exhibition in Stockholm in 1949.


From 1950 onwards his work was purely abstract. Particularly important to him was the work of French artist Auguste Herbin, whose concrete paintings of the 1940s adhered to strict principles of two-dimensionality and simple geometry. Baertling created clean areas of pure colour bordered by black diagonal lines, as well as experimenting with circles and after-images. From 1953 he used acute angles to create open forms which extend from the edges of the canvas into the surrounding space.


It was around 1955 that he started to experiment with sculpture, translating his black lines into steel rods. The artist came to regard sculpture and painting as invisible forms, both aiming to create compositions in space. An artist and designer of international reputation, Baertling also worked with architects such as David Helldén on innovative building designs and held exhibitions worldwide.
Baertling died in Stockholm in 1981.

Represented:
Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris 
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris 
Museum of Modern Art, New York 
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 
Tate Gallery, London 
Galleria Nazionale d,Arte Moderna, Rom/Rome 
Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Wien/Vienna
Nationalgalerie, Berlin 
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bryssel/Brussels 
Museo de Arte Modemo, Mexico City 
Narodni Galerie, Prag/Prague 
Magyar Nemzeti Muzeum, Budapest 
Kunstmuseum Basel 
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm 
Moderna Museet, Stockholm 
Konstmuseet i Ateneum, Helsingfors/Helsinki
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo 
Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf 
Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum der Stadt Duisburg
Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen 
Skulpturenmuseum, Marl 
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden 
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo 
Los Angeles County Museum of Art 
National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian institution, Washington 
Washington Galleri of Modern Art 
Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington
Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo 
Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Calcutta 
Museu de Arte Moderna, Sao Paulo 
Museo Internacional de la Resistencia Salvador Allende 
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio 
Portland Art Museum, Oregon 
American Swedish Historical Museum, Philadelphia 
Museum of Art, Providence, Rhode Island 
Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum, Cambridge 
Rose Art Museum, grandels University, Waltham, Massachusetts 
Columbia University, New York 
New York University 
State University of New York 
Cornell University, New York 
McCrory Corporation, New York 
University of Cambridge, England 
Stockholms universitet 
Stockholms kommun 
Arkiv för dekorativ konst/Museum of Monumental Art, Lund 
Lunds universitet 
Uppsala universitet 
Uppsala kommun
University of California, Berkeley 
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 
University of Wisconsin, Madison 
Milwaukee Art Center, Wisconsin 
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio 
Indiana University, Bloomington 
Grinnell College, Iowa 
Hartwick College, Oneonta, New York 
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Miami, Florida 
University of Tel Aviv 
Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz 
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Liège 
Svenska institutet i Rom/lstituto Svedese, Rome 
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 
Institut Tessin, Paris 
Göteborgs Konstmuseum 
Malmö Museum 
Norrköpings konstmuseum 
Västerås konstmuseum 
Örebro läns museum 
Internationella privatsamlingar/international private collections
Malmö konsthall, Malmö
Stockholm School of Economics 
Kunsthalle zu Kiel
Rasjö Collection, Sweden