The Platinum Egg 1985: Jane Bark.
As a child in the 1930s, Jane Bark is constantly drawing. She is inspired by the drawings she sees in advertising flyers and tries to improve on them, early on taking an interest in clothes and fashion. In the 1940s, she goes to Konstfack, the College of Arts, Crafts and Design, and following her studies embarks on a career as an advertising illustrator: at ad agencies, in the advertising department of Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s leading daily newspaper..., and as a freelancer for various newspapers and fashion magazines. Her distinctive illustrations for short stories published in Femina magazine in the 1960s and 70s are particularly memorable. She depicts women playfully and colourfully, mixing the sensual and the erotic with humour, a sense of freedom and a feminist consciousness. A whole generation encounters her images everywhere: in magazines, on packets in the refrigerator, on posters around the city. She illustrates a total of 350 interview portraits in Fokus magazine. Jane’s approach to her work is painstaking. Sometimes she goes to the library to read up on everything involved with a subject before she starts drawing. Often, she works with photographers who provide images. Sometimes she brings in models to get the body positions right. For the more daring poses, she sometimes looks to porno magazines for inspiration. With the same meticulousness, she prepares the lectures she gives to the Beckmans students lucky enough to have her in the 60s. Jane receives the first Golden Egg ever awarded, in 1961. She is elected to the Platinum Academy 25 years later, the first woman to receive the honour. She dies in 2023 at the age of 91.