Butterfly Game

Butterfly Game

1984 - 1986

Oil on canvas

Mått 173,00 x 140,00 cm Ram 175,50 x 143,00 x 4,00 cm

GKM 2225

Purchase, 1988

Alf Lindberg (1905–1990) studied at Valand at the same time as the original Gothenburg Colourists, but is associated more with the second generation of Colourists. His late style—richly coloured, expressive—proved an inspiration for many younger artists in the 1980s. Butterfly Game (1984–6) is from the last decade of Lindberg’s life, when his work reached new heights of vibrant Expressionism. His late paintings were akin to the Neo-Expressionism then flourishing in West Germany, but the reason for the nervy idiom should probably be sought in the artist’s own personal development rather than external influences. In this maze of zigzags and layer upon layer of blocks of colour, the viewer senses a room with three figures: one seated figure on the left, two prancing or dancing female figures in the middle and to the right. In the background is a sunlit window. The painting alternates between violet, pink, green, yellow, umber, ochre, and blue. Everything is vibrating. Nothing is fixed. Suddenly the picture opens up to the viewer, revealing its full depth, before returning to its pulsating flicker. Maybe this visual chaos corresponds better to our experience of reality than does traditional realism. Kristoffer Arvidsson from The Collection Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg 2014

Barbro Ahlfort, Lena Boëthius, Ingmari Desaix, Folke Edwards, Björn Fredlund, Jonas Gavel, Barbro Löfquist, Anne Pettersson, Håkan Wettre, Göteborgs konstmuseum dess historia och samlingar, red. Håkan Wettre, Palmeblad, Göteborg 1992., p. 121, ill. p. 121 Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Björn Fredlund, Anna Hyltze, Philippa Nanfeldt, Isabella Nilsson, Johan Sjöström, Samlingen Göteborgs konstmuseum, red. Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Anna Hyltze, Göteborgs konstmuseum, Göteborg 2014., p. 398-401, ill. p. 399 Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Martin Gustavsson, Andrea Kollnitz, Lydia Sandgren, Patrik Steorn, Jeff Werner, Håkan Wettre och Eva Zetterman, Den underbara färgen. Göteborgskolorismen i nytt ljus (Wonderful Colour: Gothenburg Colourism in a New Light), red. Kristoffer Arvidsson, Göteborgs konstmuseum och Appell Förlag, Göteborg/Stockholm, 2023., ill. p. 319