Olle Hjortzberg

Olle Hjortzberg kept a tiny studio above a bicycle shop in Stockholm, where he painted in his spare time while working full days as a postal clerk. That double life shows in his work: bright posters advertising stamps and trains, but also moody Catholic murals hidden in parish churches. If you’ve ever seen a Swedish postage stamp with a red cross or a church mural glowing gold behind the altar, that’s him.

Look up his 1920s mural cycle at St. Erik’s Cathedral in Stockholm, it’s the closest thing Sweden has to a Sistine Chapel.