Still Life Roses

Gouache behind glass by Karl Bertil Gadö (1916 - 2014)

Signed and dated 1942

Framed 42x55.5cm

Karl Bertil Gadö was a Swedish painter and graphic artist. Gadö studied art at the Skåne Painting School in Malmö from 1933 to 1935. Gadö’s work was inspired by the political ideologies of the 1930s and the prominent Surrealist movement at the time. The combination of these two forces created a new form of art, magic realism.

He made his debut in a group exhibition in Malmö in 1939 and exhibited separately for the first time at the SDS-centralen in Malmö in 1943. From 1948 to 1952, Karl Bertil Gadö was a member of the Imaginists, an avant-garde surrealist artist group founded in 1948 by painter and designer Max Walter Svanberg. This group of artists, who were looking for an alternative approach to surrealism, left the detailed style of Salvador Dali in favour of the artistic works of artists like Max Ernst and Paul Klee. He left the group in 1952 because his art became more and more surrealistic

Gadö was also a member of the Skånes Avant-Garde where he participated in exhibitions at, among others, Malmö Museum . In 1951 he participated in the Biennial at the Museo de Arte Moderna in San Paulo. Gadö is represented at the Moderna Museum and Malmö Museum.