Öyvind Fahlström (Swedish, 1928–1976) was born in São Paulo Brazil, where he lived until 1939. At the age of 10, he traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, to live for the summer with family. Due to the onset of World War II, Fahlström remained in Sweden to complete his secondary education. He became a Swedish citizen, and went on to study classics and art history at the University of Stockholm. As he traveled increasingly, he began writing for Swedish publications, and produced poetry, plays, translations, and art. His first solo exhibition was at Florence’s Galleria Numero in 1953. He continued to exhibit his art, including at the Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture in 1958.

In 1961, Fahlström moved to New York, which was his primary place of residence for the rest of his life. Living in the same building as Jasper Johns (American, b.1930), Fahlström’s artistic production increased. He participated in Happenings, exhibited his work at the 1964 and 1966 Venice Biennales, and continued to write plays that were produced in Stockholm and New York. In 1968, Fahlström made two documentaries for Swedish television about the anti-Vietnam War movement in New York, and the following year, a traveling retrospective of his work was mounted by The Museum of Modern Art.

Fahlström continued to create works of film, theater, and visual art until he died from colon cancer while in Stockholm in 1976. That same year, he had multiple solo exhibitions, had a monograph of his work published, and was the subject of a Swedish television documentary. Since his death, he has been the subject of many solo exhibitions, and his work is included in the collections of institutions like The Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago.