Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd

Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd
Erling Mandelmann, CC BY-SA 3.0

The artist who tied a knot in a revolver.

Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd worked with painting, laser, text and sculpture. His peace symbol Non-Violence is now found in more than thirty places around the world.

Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd was born in 1934 in Stockholm. He studied in Paris and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, among other places, and made his debut early, in the early 1950s. His early painting was abstract and gestural, but he soon left traditional painting behind.

Reuterswärd was a constant experimenter. He worked in painting, printmaking, text, poetry, sculpture and photography, and he also wrote books. He often played with language and signs and questioned what an artist’s signature, an image or a word really means. From the 1960s he was one of the first artists in the world to use laser and holography in art, which he called the new painting of light.

For a time he was a professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. He also lived abroad for long periods, including in Switzerland.

His best-known work is the sculpture Non-Violence, a large revolver with its barrel tied in a knot. He made it in 1980 after the murder of his friend John Lennon. One version stands outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, and more than thirty versions can be found in various places around the world. The sculpture has become an international symbol of peace.

Reuterswärd died in 2016. He is regarded as one of the most versatile Swedish artists of the post-war period and a pioneer of art working with light, technology and language.