Eva-Lena Karlsson – författare

Hans Gedda has, for half a century, been one of Sweden's most prominent photographers. Internationally, he has achieved fame for his portraits of Nelson Mandela and Andy Warhol, but his gallery of characters also includes many well-known Swedes, such as Olof Palme, Birgit Nilsson and Tomas Transtromer. In these images, there is neither time nor space; everything is stripped down to its essentials. We find examples here of both intimacy and distance. Gedda has always operated on a sliding scale of different genres and modes of expression, mixing portraiture with still life and semi-documentary reportage. Perhaps this is natural for an experimental artist who has worked all his life as a commercial photographer. Today, Hans Gedda's main areas of interest are studies of nature and still lifes.