The Platinum Egg 1984: Anders Österlin.
Advertising is not art. Its commercial mission is what defines the concept of advertising, placing it in direct contrast to typical definitions of “art”. At its best, though, advertising certainly can have artistic qualities. Perhaps one might even say should. In any case, hardly anyone personifies the cross-pollination of art and advertising better than Anders Österlin. Born in 1926 into a merchant household in Malmö , his artistic talent was recognized while he was still in school.... As a young man, Anders was hired by Åkerlund & Rausing in Lund, and in 1945, along with his colleague C.O. Hultén and Max Walter Svanberg, he founded an artists’ group, Imaginisterna, or “The Imaginists”. The group carried on until 1956. Anders also collaborated with the avant-garde Cobra group which, though it only existed from 1948 to 1951, exerted a great deal of influence on modern art. Anders never let go of his identity as an artist or his artistic ambitions after joining Svenska Telegrambyrån in Malmö in the late 1950s. There he met his constant collaborator John Melin, and operating under the name M&Ö, together they lifted Swedish advertising, with its conventional platitudes and frumpy style, to new heights of innovation and sophisticated design. Anders and John continued to work together even after the Telegrambyrån brain trust moved on to found Arbman 2 in Malmö in 1967. Besides advertisings memory banks, Anders Österlin’s work also is represented at Moderna Museum and in the design of T-Centralen, the hub of Stockholm underground system (designed in cooperation with Signe Persson-Melin). Anders passed away in 2011.