"Lekplats II" (Playground II)
Signed HL with monogram. Executed in 1945. Oil on canvas 65 x 81 cm.
Sven-Harry Karlsson Collection; Rolf Schmitz Collection.
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, December 26 1986 - February 22 1987, no. 73.
Exhibition catalog, Moderna museet, Stockholm, "Hilding Linnqvist", 1986, catalog no 73, ill fullpage p. 52.
Hilding Linnqvist is one of Sweden's most important naïve painters and became established and known early on for his colourful compositions. Linnqvist was a key figure in lyrical naivism in Sweden, with a style of painting that departed from the technical perfection he had been trained in. Several Swedish artists joined this innovative direction for the time. After studying at the Technical School and the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, he was inspired by Edward Munch and Ernst Josephson's malaise art, which led him towards a freer and more uninhibited style of painting. During the 1920s, Linnqvist travelled abroad several times and his colours became brighter and his subjects more detailed.
He later painted coastal scenes and portraits, among other things. By the early 1940s, Hilding Linnqvist was an established and well-travelled artist, as well as a professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1939-1941 and the subject of a major exhibition there in 1940.