Barbro Östlihn

Many of her hard-edge canvases were abstracted from architectural details—doors, portals, moldings, roofs, skyscrapers—while others were modeled on natural objects such as flowers.

[1] Her cool aesthetic approach marked her rejection of the tenets of Abstract Expressionism and put her squarely within the burgeoning Pop art movement.

Yet many early critics described her paintings as abstract and precisionist, tinged with the mysterious qualities of surrealism and the decadent nature of Art Nouveau—anything but Pop.

[3] Östlihn supported her husband's career by producing many of Fahlström's paintings and participating in his Happenings while building her own reputation and critical success.

[4] After moving to New York City from Stockholm in 1961, she exhibited her work throughout the 1960s at Cordier & Ekstrom (1964) and Tibor de Nagy Gallery (1966, 1968).