MATS GUSTAFSON｜1951–｜SWEDEN
Mats Gustafson is a Swedish artist and illustrator. He moved to New York in 1980 and has been based there ever since.
He began his career as a fashion illustrator in the late 1970s, and his work for British Vogue helped expand his practice internationally. After moving to New York, he worked for American Vogue, and from the late 1980s through the 1990s he contributed illustrations regularly to Vogue Italia. At a time when photography had become the dominant visual language of fashion magazines, Gustafson reasserted fashion illustration as a vital contemporary form, establishing a strong international reputation.
Working primarily in watercolor, his style is defined by an economy of line and fields of color that capture contour, movement, and texture with remarkable sensitivity. Alongside fashion, his recurring subjects include rocks, trees, deer, figures, and nudes, and his practice has long moved fluidly between fashion illustration and art.
Mats Gustafson is regarded as one of the artists who demonstrated the enduring potential of fashion illustration. His works are held in the collections of institutions including Moderna Museet, Nordiska Akvarellmuseet, and the British Museum.
