Ivan Ivarson

The Gothenburg Colourist with darkness in his colour.

Ivan Ivarson painted people and landscapes in glowing, sometimes dramatic colours. He died at the age of 39.

Ivan Ivarson was born in Gothenburg in 1900. He studied at the Valand School of Art under Tor Bjurström, who taught the whole generation later known as the Gothenburg Colourists. Ivarson is counted among this circle, but his art differs from the others' bright, lyrical landscapes.

His painting is darker, heavier and more dramatic. He painted people, figure scenes and landscapes in glowing colours that often shine out of a dark ground, and the pictures can have an almost visionary or dreamlike mood. The influence of Edvard Munch and Ernst Josephson has often been pointed out. He liked to work with thick paint and forceful brushstrokes.

Ivarson was struck by illness, and his career as an artist was therefore short. He died in 1939, only 39 years old. In his final years his pictures became increasingly intense and charged.

Today he is regarded as one of the most original painters in Gothenburg in the interwar years. He is often seen, together with Åke Göransson, as a more existential and expressive counterpart to the Colourists' bright landscape painting. His works are mainly in the Gothenburg Museum of Art.

• The interwar years
• The 1930s: colourists and Surrealists