Ulf Greder

Born in Stockholm in 1949, Ulf Greder is self-taught as a painter, participating in his first exhibition while still under twenty at Liljevach’s celebrated spring salon.

In the perspective of Sweedish Art today, Ulf Greder’s roots can be traced back to a tradition of figurative painting in his country which caught on in the early 20th century. It came as a vigorous home grown riposte to ideas and approaches bought back  from Paris by a generation of young Swedes who had studied there under painters like Matisse. For the painters of the mothers country, every day life remained the only subject, to be treated in an appropriate (some would say naive manner). Painters such as Hilding Lindqvist, Eric Hallstrom and Olle Olsson, considered their priority  was to interpret ways of life under treat from the Sweden keen at all cost to embrace Modernism. For Greder it is France, where changing lifestyles have been threatening the world he cherishes and it has been his chief pursuit to define and defend against all covers what he interprets as the French way of life.

Greder has held numerous exhibitions in Stockholm as well as other Swedish cities. Since the early 1970s, he has been largely resident in Britain, aside from periods spent in New York and India and frequent visits to France, his principle source of inspiration. He has been represented by Francis Kyle Gallery for over twenty-five years, showing first in the Gallery’s theme exhibition, We Must Always Turn South…which introduced his taste for Mediterranean subject matter to English collectors. He held his first American exhibition in San Francisco in 1990 and in 1993 showed in The Hague, Holland. One-man exhibitions with Francis Kyle Gallery in 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2011.

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