Sebastian Johans: Peter Dahl was rabulisten who won the hearts of the people

It was not just a Peter Dahl, but several.

The first thing I got to know was the älskvärde rabulisten who painted life in the city and became a Bellman with a family frejdighet so big that you could believe they sat on The golden peace, and lift both the one and the many cups together. So it is likely for many that grew up in the 80's, when Peter Dahl was of the few artists who took themselves all the way to the common man's living room.

Read more: Swedish artist Peter Dahl is dead

He appeared in the posters, lithographs and books and in the collective campfire television still accounted for.

When I was a little older, I met my second Peter Dahl. Far more caustic than krogskildraren loved by all, with paintings such as the monumental ”Proud city.”

”Self-portrait with grandmother's sofa”, 1953. Photo: Sven-Harry's art museum

irreverent, angry, and rebellious Peter Dahl I encountered. And painting what, of course, ” " A breakthrough in high society”, where the princess Sibylla bared themselves for a societetsherre who proudly displayed his erect limb. The painting had been confiscated by the police when it went in the beginning of the 70s, which placed Dahl is in the same league as Carl-Johan De Geer, with its desecrated the flag. It was not without the illustrations to the Fredmans epistles suddenly appeared a little toothless.

today, the distance between the epistelbilderna and målningsserien ”Dreams in the sofa”, where ” " A breakthrough in high society” included, still not very large. The latter is admittedly more political and do with toxic colours, a merciless satire of a lobotomerat indifferent, bourgeois middle class, which is just dreaming about to climb yet another notch samhällsstegen. But in addition it is quite close to the Bellmantolkningarnas gladporriga and very lustful storytelling.

It is visible, when Peter Dahl have had fun.

more pages than these two. About a year ago, opened the retrospective ”Peter Dahl's worlds,” in Sven-Harry's guldhus in the Park. Peter Dahl was already marked by the disease, and it seemed likely that the exhibition would be the last major presentation of his oeuvre that he himself would get to see. Allegedly, the artist was himself pleased with the exhibition, as the son Christoffer Dahl had compiled.

With some justification, I might add. This had the audience, as the exhibition title suggests, meet not just one and two, but many different Peter Dahl.

We got to see the tentative young man who during his time at the Royal college of art 1958-63 took great impression of a teacher Lennart Rhode. We got to see the first steps of a more independent artist who threw himself out of society, with its insatiable appetite. And we got, of course, also see the älskvärde rumlaren that hung at the pub.

But we also got to see eskapisten as a whole, long life was built on a childhood wonderland Caribanien, which consists of a number of finely structured environments populated by more than 30 000 tin soldiers, supplemented with kartböcker, dictionaries, historians, and so on.

sene, nostalgiske painter who ljusromantiskt longed to be back in paintings such as the heartfelt ”My grandmother's house”.

It was a nice summary of a long career. And sincere. It was also here that the years around 1970 purely qualitative sticking out of Peter Dahl. In the suite ”Our room”, said ”the Dreams in the sofa” and a variety of individual works from this period abounds Peter Dahl's canvases a painterly intensity that can easily compete with giants like Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

”My grandmother's house 1”, 1990. Photo: Sven-Harry's art museum

During a handful of years is Peter Dahl so good to his other artistic output to some extent overshadowed. But it is a problem that belongs to the enjoyable. Peter Dahl is not bad before and after this period. It's just that he right there and then can compete with the very largest, which the vast majority of artists never can.

started with one of the artist's very last paintings, ”Trippelsjälvporträtt”. In fact, sitting in the rullstolsburne the artist in front of the 60-talsverket ”Two self-portraits in the opposite roles. It is a kongenial image. The distance is far between the ageing painter and his two younger I. But the worlds are approaching each other. A lamp from the older room has moved into the new. The threads are pulled together. All editions of the Peter Dahl sitting together.

the Painting was a fine introduction to a worthy ending.

Trippelsjälvporträtt, 2016. The artist in front of the 60-talsverket ”Two self-portraits in the opposite roles. The work visadespå last year's retrospective exhibition at Sven-Harrys. Photo: Sven-Harry's art museum