Bertil Berntsson
Untitled, 1967
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 40 x 32 cm
Joseph Clark Collection · JCC-0013
About the work
This small oil painting belongs to Bertil Berntsson’s mature abstract practice. Its intimate scale invites attention to the relationships through which a composition takes shape: placement, edge, tone and the intervals between forms. Signed and dated 1967, it offers a close encounter with a painter whose restrained visual language gives weight to subtle distinctions.
About the artist
Bertil Berntsson (1921–2002) was a Swedish painter and sculptor. He studied at Valand in Gothenburg, the Skånska painting school in Malmö and with André Lhote in Paris. His early landscapes and portraits gradually gave way to a more restrained abstract language.
Berntsson became known for contemplative compositions using limited tonal ranges and simple arrangements of lines and forms. Living for many years in Helsingborg, he exhibited regularly in the city and produced public commissions, including work for healthcare and educational settings. His practice joins an interest in the material surface of painting with a deliberately reduced visual vocabulary.