Thea Ekström

Thea Ekström was born in Halmstad in 1920. She passed away in Stockholm in 1988.

Swedish artist Thea Ekström gained wide recognition during the 1960s and 1970s. Her international breakthrough came in 1962 with a solo exhibition in Paris, followed by shows in New York, Washington, Tokyo and across Europe. While living, her work was actively featured in solo and group exhibitions at Centre Culturel Suédois, Paris (1988/1975), Malmö konsthall, Turku Art Museum, Reykjavik Art Museum and Århus konstmuseum (1980); Gallery Marc Moyens, Washington, Baukunst Galerie, Cologne and Galerie Lietzow, Berlin (1971), Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York (1970), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1970/1960), Milwaukee Art Center, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin (1962); Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City (1963), Howard University, Washington D.C. (1964), Galerie Raymond Cordier, Paris (1963/1962), Brooklyn Museum, New
York (1962) and Louisiana museum, Humlebæk (1960).

A major retrospective at Konstnärshuset in Stockholm in 1977 confirmed her standing, accompanied by a Swedish Television documentary. Posthumous retrospectives of her work were held at Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde (1990), Kristianstad konsthall, Länsmuseet Halmstad and Västerås Art Museum (2007-2008), and Mint konsthall (2020). In 2023, Mjellby Art Museum received a large deposit of Thea Ekström’s work which resulted in the exhibition Thea Ekström – Tonsäker surrealism in 2024
with exhibition design by renowned architect Petra Gipp.

Her work is represented in the collections of Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Norrköping Art Museum and Halland Art Museum. Noteworthy private collections include Jean Dubuffet, Georges Pompidou, Paris, Raymond Cordier, Paris, H. Marc Moeyens, Alexandria, Robert M. Benjamin, New York, Rockefeller, New York.