Gunnar Norrman

Gunnar Norrman

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A native of Scania, Sweden's southernmost province, Gunnar Norrman received formal training as a botanist and concert-grade pianist before turning to art. For over 50 years he focused his art exclusively on drawings and prints in black and white. His subjects - trees, flowers, land- and sea-scapes, more rarely still-lifes - are filled with a poetic silence conveying the oriental tradition of reverence and humility before nature, a strong theme in Norrman's life. While rendering the most fragile detail, he still was able to produce "sumptuous concentrations of black" (John Russell, The New York Times, May 1988), or to create the effect of a cool, silvery mist. As an accomplished musician, he combined in his work the same delicacy and strength required in an interpretation of Brahms, Chopin or Shumann, among the composers he admired most.

Since his earliest individual show at the Malmö Museum in 1942, Norrman has had numerous exhibitions in Europe - with Galerie Brusberg in Berlin, Fischer Fine Art in London, and Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris, inter al. - as well as in Japan. In the United States, Fitch-Febvrel offered his first individual exhibition in 1980, and has had seven since, the last in November/December 2003. Since 1994 the Pucker Gallery in Boston has held numerous exhibitions, with accompanying catalogues, the latest in the summer of 2016.

Norrman's work can be found in the collections of a score of museums, including, locally, those of the Metropolitan Museum and the New York Public Library.


1912 - Born in Malmö, Sweden
1930 - Begins natural science studies at the University of Lund
1931 - Settles in Lomma
1934 - Debut as a painter and draftsman at the annual exhibition of the Scanian Art Association, Malmö, Sweden
1938 - Receives Bachelor of Science degree in Botany, Chemistry and Genetics from University of Lund
1942 - First individual exhibition, of drawings, at the Malmö Museum of Art
1951 - Marriage to Ulla Sylvén
1958 - Stipend from the 70th Birthday Trust of King Gustaf VI Adolf
1964 - Participates in traveling exhibition of Swedish graphic art in the Soviet Union
1979 - Receives Prince Eugene Medal
1980 - Works purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library (from first New York exhibition at Fitch-Febvrel)
1991 - Works purchased by the British Museum in London
2005 - Dies in Lomma, a month shy of his 93rd birthday


Selected Individual Exhibitions
1942 - Malmö Museum of Art
1945 - Lorensberg Gallery, Göteborg
1947 - Hahne Gallery, Stockholm
1950 - Scania Museum of Art, Lund
1967 - Höganäs Museum
1970 - Kalmar Museum; Trelleborgs Museum
1972 - Kristianstads Museum
1973 - Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf
1975 - Konstnärshuset, Stockholm
1976 - Galerie Leger, Malmö
1977 - Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf
1978 - Kunsthandel Haagen-Müller, Copenhagen; Galerie Leger, Malmö
1979 - Fischer Fine Art, London; Galerie Leger, Malmö; La FIAC, Grand Palais, Paris
1980 - Fitch-Febvrel Gallery, New York
1981 - Galerie Ditesheim, Neuchâtel; Galerie Thomas, Munich; Galerie Leger, Malmö
1982 - Galerie Forum, Stockholm; Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf; Malmö Konsthall
1983 - Fitch-Febvrel Gallery, New York; Galerie Leger, Malmö; Gallery Mikimoto, Tokyo; Gallery Petit Formes, Osaka; Museo Rayo, Colombia; Pennsylvania State Univ. Museum of Art; Staempfli Gallery, New York; Valley House Gallery, Dallas
1984 - Fischer Fine Art, London; Galerie Brusberg, Berlin and Hanover
1985 - Galerie Ditesheim, Neuchâtel; Galerie Leger, Malmö; Galleria Forni, Bologna and Genoa
1986 - Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris; Galerie Leger, Malmö; Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf; Pucker Safrai Gallery, Boston; Varberg Museum
1987 - Galerie Leger, Malmö; Galerie Astley, Uttersberg; Galerie Boibrino, Stockholm; Galerie Olab, Göteborg; Galerie Tempo, Stockholm
1988 - Fitch-Febvrel Gallery, New York; Galerie Leger, Malmö; Galleri Linné, Uppsala; Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf
1990 - Galerie Ditesheim, Düsseldorf; Grafiska Sällskapet, Stockholm
1992 - Fitch-Febvrel Gallery, New York; Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf; Museum of Art
1993 - Lorensberg Gallery, Göteborg
1994 - Konstnärshuset, Stockholm; Pucker Gallery, Boston
1995 - Fitch-Febvrel Gallery, New York; Höganäs Museum; Pucker Gallery, Boston
1996 - Pucker Gallery, Boston
1997 - Fitch-Febvrel Gallery, New York; Pucker Gallery, Boston
1998 - Galleri Linné, Uppsala
1999 - Pucker Gallery, Boston
2000 - Fitch-Febvrel Gallery, New York
2002 - Pucker Gallery, Boston; Malmö Museum of Art
2003 - Fitch-Febvrel Gallery, New York
2004 - Pucker Gallery, Boston
2006 - Pucker Gallery, Boston; Galerie Leger, Malmö
2009 - Pucker Gallery, Boston
2012 - Pucker Gallery, Boston
2013 - Galerie Documents 15, Paris
2014 - Pucker Gallery, Boston
2016 - Pucker Gallery, Boston
2018 - Pucker Gallery, Boston


See April 29, 1983 New York Times Review
See May 20, 1988 New York Times Review
See June 23, 1995 New York Times Critics' Choices
See April 3, 1996 Tufts Daily Review
See April 4, 1996 Boston Globe Review
See December 2000 Artnet Review

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