Swedish painter, sculptor, illustrator and glass designer.

Lundqvist grew up in the Skåne region in southern Sweden, an area that became known for its artists’ colonies from the nineteenth century. His father was a carpenter so presumably his early memories involved watching him in his workshop, soaking in the atmosphere of creativity. In 1938 he entered the Skånes Painting School, a well-known establishment that had been founded in Malmo, the largest local city, a decade before. The school’s principal Tage Hansson (1889–1968) was a highly competent painter, whose work although traditional in technique was far from old fashioned and demonstrated an awareness of contemporary international artistic currents. Two years under Hansson left Lundqvist with a sound grounding in painting technique that stood him well for the next half century. In 1946 he returned to the school to spend a year’s further studies with the German-Danish sculptor Harald Isenstein (1898-1980.

In 1948 he followed the well-trodden path of many Swedish artists of his generation and travelled to Paris. Although he was tutored by both André Lhote (1885-1962) and Jean Fautrier (1898-1964) it was Lhote who had the most profound influence on Lundqvist’s work. By the early 1950s his rather heavy impressionist style had begun to give way to the clear hard lines of Lhote’s jaunty cubism. For the next forty years Lundqvist painted in this distinctive, paired down style for which he is now so recognised. He travelled to the South of France, Spain and Morocco and much of his work portrays life in climates far hotter than Sweden.

A long and successful commercial career was peppered with numerous exhibitions across Scandinavia. For his last thirty years he enjoyed a parallel life as a respected glassware designer, working first for the Trelleborg Glassworks and from 1958 as artistic director at Alsterfors Glassworks. Lundqvist is represented in public collections in his home country and numerous private collections worldwide. In recent years his modernist compositions, painted with style and a certain gentle humour, have won him a renewed following amongst interior designers and collectors art alike.