Georg Lodström, in memoriam

1915 - 1972 Born in Stockholm, Sweden

Studies:

Technical School of Arts, Stockholm, Ollers Art Academy, Stockholm, Académie Ranson, Paris

Travels:

Denmark, Norway, France, Italy, Spain, Venezuela, Panama

Individual exhibitions:

During 1943 - 1972, 8 in Stockholm, 10 in Göteborg as well as in Västerås, Örebro, Borås, Umeå and other locations.

Represented:

Västerås museum, Stockholm City Museum and Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm.

In 1918 the influenza epidemic struck Georgs father Frans Oscar and brother Lars, leaving him with alone with his mother Frida. Below: Frida and Frans Oscar.

They lived at Hjärnegatan 5, where I remember visiting "Grandma" for many a good Christmas dinners among other occasions. Across the street was a radio service shop outside which I spent hours watching through the window. How times change. It never even occurred to me that I could ask if I could come inside.

Georg had to go to work very young to support the family. Hard work gave him an excellent physics and he competed in bicycle racing and swimming. I usually win my arm wrestling contests, but even when my father was 50 and I at my strongest, I stood no chance! It is almost pathetic how people nowadays pay for their workout in a "Gym", whereas Georg got his workouts in order to get paid. Times have changed. Am I somewhere in the middle?

Georg, Jan and me, the summer 1945 in Ängalag, Sweden.

Although I was only three years, I have three memories from that summer: I had 'baked' sand cakes and invited my parents to try them. I remember the room in the house had dark brown, big, ceiling beams and I remember having a boiled egg for breakfast. When I got the top of the egg off, there was two black spots on the top of the yolk, like eyes, looking at me! I thought it was a chicken and did not have to eat it. There are some more memories, but I am not sure they are from that summer.

I recall my fathers paintings as "seeking" for most of his life. In the 60's they were using a lot of green. After a trip to Central America around 1970 he finally "arrived". All the colors broke out, and he could really handle them. These paintings are so strong that one cannot have them on the same wall as lesser paintings. Unfortunately there was only to be a few years left to develop what had been honed and prepared for during more than 30 years.

Somewhere in Spain, early 1950-ies. Alicante maybe? Photos by Lars Ryde.

7-30-97 I just got some old postcards from my mother and I see that Georg was in Collioure, France, in September 1949. The picture could be from that trip. The postcard says he stayed c/o Mme Corty. Anybody recognize the name or the kids in the picture?

Georg and Mona in front of the house we lived in from 1947 to 1953 on Åsögatan 211 in Stockholm.

Now I have made some more room on the hard drive, the hard way!

Painting from Roslagstull, Stockholm, the summer 1942. Painted the morning I was born.

Shoreline, probably on Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea.

"Blåeld" (Blue Fire) or Vipers Bugloss in English. Ask Mona, she knows! Another motif from Gotland.

Georg rarely painted animals. Here a rare exemption of grazing cows.

Georgs last painting, dedicated to Mona.

This is the view out one of the windows of their summerhouse.

Bertelsmässe in Hamra on the southern tip of Gotland.

"One thing I know that never dies; judgement over dead man."

Icelandic sagas AD ~900.