Biography

Johan Falkman was born in Trelleborg/ Sweden October 22, 1967. After High-school Falkman studied academic drawing, sculpture and painting at Dimitar Rangatchews Art-schools in Malmö. During the summer of 1988 he studied old-master painting at Ernst Fuchs’ school in Reichenau, Austria for the still-life painter Susanne Steinbacher, who had specialized in Jan van Eyck’s Michtechnique, a combination of oil and egg-tempera.

In 1990 Falkman moved to America to study portrait painting at The National Academy of Design. In 1991 he was accepted to Pratt Institute for further studies in painting, drawing, graphics, sculpture and art-history. He also studied conservation, methodology and philosophy.

Falkman received his Bachelor of Fine Arts with Highest Honors in 1994 and was awarded The Pratt Circle Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement. The following year he was awarded The Pratt Institute’s Certificate of Excellence/ Outstanding Merit Award in the School of Art and Design. He was also the recipient of The American Scandinavian Society Cultural Grant Award 1995. Falkman continued his studies at Pratt for an additional three years, during which he specialized in painting, art-history, Greek mythology and Venetian renaissance.

Falkman is mostly known for his portrait-exhibition “Immortality – Portraits of Doctors in Lund” that was shown at the museum Kulturen in Lund, Sweden, between the 14th of January to the 26th if February 2006. The exhibition consisted of seventy portraits in oil of renowned medical professors.
In 2007 Falkman was commissioned by The Port of Trelleborg to make a monumental painting about the Harbour’s one-hundred year history. Falkman went to Mexico to seek for inspiration among the Mexican Muralists. He worked for two years on the paintings. The Trelleborg Murals were inaugurated the 9th of June, 2009. The paintings measures 700 x 470 cm each and are hung permanently in the Harbour’s terminal-building at Hamngatan 9 in Trelleborg.

The Museum of Sketches in Lund exhibited all of Falkman’s sketches for the Trelleborg Mural between the 13th of December to the 14th of February 2010. The exhibition was titled “Images from a Harbour”.

Aside from the portrait-exhibition at San Ildefonso in Mexico City, Falkman is planning a monumental painting about freedom and democracy, made especially for the new Townhouse in Hörby, Sweden. One of the main-characters for the painting is the Egyptian writer Nawal El Saadawi. Falkman went to Cairo to paint her portrait in August 2011. Together with the Financial Director Anders Jarlskog, Falkman is planning to build a monument over the history of the town of Lund. The monument will consist of a 600 square-feet, temple like building, drawn by the architect Abelardo Gonzalez. Falkman and Jarlskog will start their project after Falkman’s exhibition in Mexico.

Falkman is a sought after portrait-painter and is represented in many private and public collections. Among the public collections are: The Bishopric of Lund, The Museum of Sketches in Lund, The Institute of Forensic Medicine at The University of Lund, Malmö Public Hostpital, Locus Medicus, Lund, The Lund Universityhospital, Biomedical Centre, Lund, The Academic Association at The University of Lund, Igelösa Life Science Community, ILSC, The Swedish Patent and Registration office, Stockholm, The Town of Trelleborg, The Port of Trelleborg, Färs & Frosta Savingsbank in Lund.