Sture Johannesson

Sture Johannesson (1935-2018) is a Swedish artist. He is known for running the legendary gallery Cannabis in Malmö and for his political and provocative works in a psychedelic underground style. Johannesson was often censored, for both his selective art works and for his exhibitions. His breakthrough as an artist came in 1968 with the famous poster “Friheten på Barrikaderna II” or “Haschflickan” (The Hash Girl) as it became known as. The poster depicted a naked woman smoking a pipe of hash.

Sture Johannesson and his wife, Charlotte Johannesson, were pioneers in digital art.
His early digital works were shown at the Computer Art Fair in 1974, and the played with optical illusions and effects. To be able to create their respective works, Sture and Charlotte Johannesson received help from Sten Kallin at IBM and by Steve Wozniak at Apple.

Sture Johannesson created album covers for artists such as Peps Persson and Kal P. Dal.

Johannesson is represented in the collections of MoMA, New York, Malmö Konsthall, Moderna Museet and Kulturen in Lund.