Lambert Werner Swedish, 1900-1983

Lambert Werner (1906–1983) was one of the first artists to engage seriously with Surrealism in Sweden. After studying in Berlin and Paris in the late 1920s, he was influenced by Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and mentored by Gösta Adrian- Nilsson (GAN), who encouraged both his artistic and personal self-exploration. Werner developed a Surrealist visual language shaped by symbolic structure and psychological depth. His work also marked an early and open exploration of homosexuality and queer identity—decades before it was visible in Swedish art. He exhibited at the Salon des Surindépendants (1930), Liljevalchs (1933), the International Surrealist Exhibition in Copenhagen (1937), and Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at MoMA (1936). Through the 1930s and 1940s, he created some of the most original contributions to Nordic Surrealism.