Axel Olson was a visual artist, born in the city of Holm in 1899. He grew up in Halmstad in a sailor family, his father later became a machinist. At age 15, he and his brother Erik and cousin Waldemar Lorentzon took an evening course in drawing at the Technical School. From there they formed the artist group "The Spark" (Gnistan) in 1915.
    Thanks to the filmmaker Viking Eggeling's sister, who becomes his patron, Olson was able to travel to Italy and Germany to paint in 1922. In 1923 he settled in Berlin and became a student of the Russian sculptor and painter Alexander Archipenko. Here he came in contact with the continent's avant-garde movements Der Sturm, Italian futurism, Russian constructivism and French cubism. He abandoned pure landscape painting and began experimenting with abstract painting. During this period he exhibited works alongside artists including Pablo Picasso, Ferdinand Léger and Kurt Schwitters.

     In the fall of 1924 Olson returned to Halmstad and became a teacher in the painting circle "De Unga" with, among others, Sven Jonson and Esaias Thorén as students. In the spring of 1929 the artist, together with Waldemar Lorentzon, was commissioned to decorate Skavböke chapel.
    In 1929 he co-foundec  the artist group Halmstad Group (Halmstadsgruppen) along with Erik Olson, Waldemar Lorentzon, Sven Jonson, Esaias Thorén and Stellan Mörner. In the mid-1930s the group switched from a post-cubist style to that of surrealist painting. For the next three decades the Halmstad Group represented the best avant-garde art being produced in Sweden.

     At the end of World War II the artists each move from surrealism to explore their own version of expressionism. In 1948 Axel Olson traveled to Paris for the first time. Contact with French non-figurative art left its mark on his paintings, and after a trip to Provence in the early 1950s, his color became brighter. In the 1960s, Axel Olson once again linked to a more surreal visual language with dramatic motifs in a duller color scale. Along with paintings, he also produced many surrealist lithographs during this period.

     He has public works at Halmstad City Hall, Halmstad City Library, Folkets Hus theater, and the county hall in Halmstad.

     The artist is represented in these public institutions:

• Nationalmuseum in Stockholm

• Moderna Muséet in Stockholm

• Göteborgs Konstmuseum

• Centre Pompidou

• Malmö Museum

• Gävle County Museum

• Halland Art Museum

• Norrköping Art Museum

• Esklstuna Museum

• Mjellby Art Museum in Halmstad

• Brooklyn Museum