The Swedish artist Sven Alfons was a self-taught painter, but deepened his theoretical knowledge through studies in art history under Ragnar Josephson at University of Lund. After completing his studies, he undertook extensive travels in Europe, where he drew inspiration from artists Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Kurt Schwitters.

From an early stage, the imagery of fantasy and narrative came to characterise Alfons's artistic practice, and his work is marked by a dreamlike, often symbol-laden expression. The paintings in this auction are no exceptions. The two works appear in monumental formats with distinctly surrealistic traits, painted with razor-sharp clarity and great detail. Here, objects and animals intertwine in an enigmatic whole – the artist portrays strong contrasts between life and death, light and darkness, imagination and reality.

"The poetic titles with which Alfons adorns his paintings are more of a commentary than a directive, a suggestion for a state of feeling rather than a dictate for the experience. Every dominance is a threat to the freedom of thought and the free wandering of emotion. Even unfreedom can be depicted freely, the painful can offer relief, the bondage breathes; these constricted figures preserve a paradoxical reserve for the possibility of freedom, the crack in a closed universe. Freedom struggles with unfreedom just as ecstasy struggles with death.

This creates both drama and repose. The viewer oscillates between tension and relaxation, between anxiety and calm. The dead things are full of experiences. Silence blows through the landscape. Time stands still and moves at once, so quickly that the echo arrives before the shout […] It is as if Alfons's paintings should not be 'interpreted'. But they can always be described. One never has to waver in doubt about what 'exists' on the canvas. What one begins to wonder about is what exists in the world.

This wonder and amazement is a strong and positive experience. Suddenly, the spectator becomes aware of the joy of seeing and observing, even in the face of the bleakest and darkest subjects. Only he who sees can endure." (Erland Josephson, in the introduction to Sven Alfons, "On the Stay in the Canopies of Trees", 1990).

Alongside his painting, Sven Alfons was also a highly regarded poet, art critic, and art historian.