Bengt Borg

Sörmland painter Bengt Sigvard Borg, born in Stockholm in 1931, chose to leave the big city to settle in the Södermanland countryside at Molstaberg’s estate in Vårdinge in 1959. Despite his genuine background in the big city of Stockholm, the urban environment was rarely expressed in his art. Instead, it was the descriptions of nature, the memories from his walks in the scenic, still untouched, forests in Vårdinge and the excursions on Långsjön, reproduced in a realistic, idyllically animated way, that became one of his modes of expression. This is in contrast to his naïve images and personal enigmatic portraits. Not infrequently, he gave expression to the feeling of the unknown directed towards the idyll of the Swedish public home, where, based on symbolism, he left it up to the viewer to interpret the picture's message based on their own impressions and experiences. Another one of Bengts. mode of expression was kurbit painting, associated with a genuinely Swedish past, often with verses in Old Swedish spelling taken from the Old Testament's High Verse. Bengt was a down-to-earth, clearly undervalued, versatile artist. For him, the practice of art was of course a source of income, but it was also important for him to know that his paintings, stones and painted furniture were in, as he saw it, the right hands. When this happened, he felt more satisfied and happy about the sale. (Source: Exhibition text, Kenneth Nygren, Södertälje Art Gallery 2012)