Bengt Lindström - Biography
Bengt Lindström was born in Storsjökappel (Great Lake Chapel), a village of 200 souls in Norrland, Sweden, on September 3, 1925.
He is not four days old when his godfather, who is the chief of the Lapps, administers earth baptism to him by passing him through the tangled roots of a dead tree in order to assure him of the gods' protection against the dangers of life.
It is in this immense, mythical and brutal district of mountains, lakes and forests that the child will grow up.
The woodsmen will come out of their dumbness to tell him the legends and mysteries of the Great North.
It is from these giants that he will learn that long path of taciturn adventure.
Over the course of ten years, Bengt Lindström will be nourished by the milk of the gods.
But at ten years old, one puts away the wonderful! It is necessary to leave for school.
His parents send him to Harnôsand.
He is alone. He begins to paint.
In 1944, he enrolls in the School of Fine Arts in Stockholm.
In 1945, he transfers to the Copenha-gen School of Fine Arts, with Aksel Jorgensen.
In 1946, he is in Chicago, where he attends courses at the Art Institute for a year.
In 1947, he comes to Paris, to Fernand Léger, then to Montparnasse, to the André Lothe Academy. Here he met Marie-Louise Bou- driot, whom he married in 1951.In 1949, he visited Florence and Assisi and made the discovery of Cimabue's frescoes.
Great admiration for Tuscany in the same breath as Rembrandt and Goya.In 1950, a grant from the Swedish newspaper Afton Tidning enables him to take up in the Marne Valley his first studio.
First group exhibition in 1953 at the Craven Gallery in Paris.
First individual exhibition in 1954 at Gummesons Konstgalleri in Stockholm.
Since then, a tireless worker, he divides his time between Paris and Sweden, in the company of his charming wife Marie-Louise.
