Irène K:son Ullberg

1930-2022

"The mission of an artist is to bring forth a sensitivity for the values of life."

The artist Irène K:son Ullberg lived between 1930 and 2022. She is known for her colorism and “musicality” in her paintings framed by poetry with an inspiration of Monet and Chagall. It's about realism and poetry. Her art spans many media such as oil, watercolor, etching, drawing and lithography, but her most important works are her oil paintings, especially her landscapes and watercolors also including stories of people. She was active mostly in Sweden but travelled and worked extensively in France, Italy and Greece. Irène believed that an artist's task is to emphasize the beauty of nature and doing so in both realism and poetry.

‘Painting is a way of experiencing. The music of my life in oil. It is a story of joy and realization of changing times, but the love of beauty must survive.’

‘My work is about realism and poetry, but realism must always win over poetry.’

‘I say like Picasso: I paint my life!’

Selected critique

"delicacy and power merge with lightness, poetry harmonizes the whole, and sometimes the powerful sounds make one think of Van Gogh. This is certainly a name to remember.”

Nouveaux Jours, 1972

"Bright light, trees and flowers often without scent, calm lakes, interiors that would not have disappointed Bonnard nor should we forget Irene K:son Ullberg's graphics, which confirm her undeniable talent for portraying children."

L’amatuer d’art, 1972

“This painting is dense, made up of large volumes and wide expanses of color, retaining the essential details and sometimes in a discreet Cubist spirit. ... A measured sense of decoration is visible, and Nordic sounds give light and warmth to the interiors.”

Noveaux Jours de Paris, 1974

‘The first thing you notice in the artist's paintings is the color, generously applied, untreated on the canvas in bold strokes ... In a few pictures there are people ... and when the bride's veil flutters up to the height, or the bright dove stands against a clear blue background, then the thoughts go straight to Chagall.’

Kalmar, 1978

”There is a fresh exuberance in this painting - both in the festive-sounding colours and in the teeming, rich pictorial imagination. A radiance of happy generosity.”

Tord Bäckström, Handelstidningen