Greta Knutson

Born in Stockholm, Greta Knutson was a Swedish surrealist painter, art critic, poet, and writer.

[1] She attended the Carl Wilhelmson Academy of Fine Arts for one year,[1] then studied at the Kungliga Konsthögskolan, and settled in Paris, France during the early 1920s.

[5] With funds from her inheritance, Tzara built the family residence in Montmartre, commissioned to architect Adolf Loos (a former figure of the Modernist Movement in Vienna).

[7] During the late 1930s, she painted a portrait of Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti; she later recounted that her model confessed to her that his borrowings from African art, although discussed by critics, were only coincidental, and had to do with the fact that primitivism was in fashion.

[3] Together with poet Gunnar Ekelöf, she translated works of Swedish literature into French,[3] but her own poetry was never issued as a volume during her lifetime.

[1][4] Greta Knutson's French-language poems were translated into Swedish by poet Lasse Söderberg, and, together with her husband, she was the subject of a study by art historian Cecilia Sjöholm.