Lars Lerin’s much celebrated 2014 solo show Arkiv at Lars Bohman Gallery included, as well as his large watercolours of bookshelves or display cases with taxidermy birds, brightly-coloured depictions of theatres, cathedrals and fairgrounds (for example, Michael Jackson’s private fairground ‘Neverland’). Both critics and the public praised the mix of the spectacular and the ordinary in his imagery. Here, finally, was Lerin’s entire range on show. The large watercolour in the auction is from the series Neverland and was displayed in the exhibition right next to its ‘sister’ painting. Since then it has remained in the same private collection.
Lars Lerin is one of Sweden’s most beloved artists. Through his technically brilliant watercolours he captures the Swedish soul in a way few other artists have managed. There is a kind of magnificent melancholy and a tenderness for small everyday moments in his work. Nobody or nothing is too insignificant or trivial to catch Lerin’s eye; pinned butterflies, sailors longing for love, archival folders, sunsets in Northern Norway, family albums, typical 1960s tower blocks or Elsa in the village of Skräddartorp with her 28 cats. All this is immortalised in a sensitive and assured style, by an artist who dares to reveal his own vulnerability.