Lennart Jirlow was born and bred in Stockholm. At the age of 9, Jirlow completed his first oil painting, which he managed to sell for 5 kronor. Thereafter, he spent his weekly allowance on brushes and panels. He wanted to become an artist, and so he did. In 1952, he was accepted – at the age of 16 and as the youngest student that year – to Konstfack.

Two years later, Jirlow embarked on his first major trip to Europe. He visited Holland to study Rembrandt and then continued on to Paris, Naples, and Florence, among other places. In the latter city, he ended up staying for four whole years to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti – the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts. In 1958, he returned to Stockholm, later that year holding his debut exhibition at the gallery Modern Art in a home environment on Strandvägen.

During the 1960s, Jirlow continued to exhibit regularly, including in Gothenburg and Stockholm. But even more importantly was his first exhibition at the Galerie des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1965, which became his true breakthrough. By this time, his style had developed into the detailed, colourful, and seemingly naive expression we have come to know today, with themes revolving around French everyday life: interiors of family-owned bistros, idyllic country hotels with flower-filled balconies, the baker with his baguettes, the chef in his kitchen, the gendarme in his uniform. The combination appealed to the French, and the exhibition received attention in both French and Swedish media. In a local publication, he was referred to as “the Swedish artist who shows the French their France,” and Expressen featured a full-page spread, which resonated greatly back home.

At the time of his breakthrough in France, Lennart Jirlow had been living in Provence for a year, but the success in Paris led to several exhibitions in the French capital during the 1970s, and it wasn't long before Jirlow acquired a home and studio there as well. The subjects primarily revolved around the small pleasures of everyday life: visits to restaurants, bistros, or wine cellars, coffee breaks in the pergola, outings on the archipelago boat, walks in the park or along the palm-lined promenade. Lennart Jirlow's paintings are filled with a sense of storytelling, and their least common denominator is, almost without exception, a love for colour and for life.