Birgit Broms

Birgit Broms (1924–2008) was a student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the late 1940s. Sven X:et Erixson and Bror Hjorth were two of her teachers there. She also studied in Venice and Ravenna in Italy, where she focused especially on fresco painting and the old Italian masters. Broms had her first solo exhibition at Galleri Blanche in Stockholm in 1957. Composition was the principal aesthetic challenge, according to Broms. She was fascinated by the interplay between movement and stillness, between volumes and the spaces in between. Therefore, she loved to experiment with form. Deftly, she combined cardboard, news cuttings, tin foil and strips of fabric into intricate collages. She painted in oil and watercolour, on canvas and paper. Birgit Broms’ superb works contrast roughness and elegance, earthiness and ethereality. She could set static images in perpetual motion.