Svante Bergh was a Swedish artist born in 1885 in Malmö, the son of non-commissioned officer Theodor Bergh and Kerstin Olsdotter. In 1899, at the age of 14, he began taking evening courses in decorative painting at Malmö Technical School. From there he was awarded a scholarship where he traveled to Dresden in 1903 and studied under Albert Petersen.

     He returned to Sweden in 1907 to work as an assistant to artist Julius Kronberg in the execution of the decorative paintings at the Royal Dramatic Theatre. He then continued his studies with Johan Rohde at Kristian Zahrtmann's painting school from 1909–1912. During his time at the school, he got to know artists Sigfrid Ullman and Gösta Adrian Nilsson. After his stay in Copenhagen, he traveled on to Paris, where he stayed until the outbreak of the First World War.

     In 1914 Bergh returned to Sweden and became one of the early proponents of 20th Century modernism in the region of Skåne through use of his free-style painting done in clear, bright colors. Some early critiques were negative including that his painting style was deemed ‘uneven’. But Bergh also received some positive reviews. The doctor, ornithologist and art critic Dr. Paul Rosenius wrote, ”Bergh has found his own style and has a beautiful talent to build on”. The Swedish art researcher and author Dr. Adolf Anderberg concluded in his critique, ”Bergh is a new chapter in the Scandinavian visual arts”.

     From 1919–1923 Bergh returned to Paris to study, this time under the French artist André Lhote. In 1919 he exhibited at Lund University's Art Museum together with artists Tora Holmström and Emil Olsson. They and several other students joined the art collective De Tolv (The Twelve) in 1921. The group combined students from Académie Colarossi and Andre Lhote’s school. It was made up of Swedish artists, most of who came from Skåne and were born between 1880 and 1900. The name referred to the number of members in the group and was taken from De Åtta (The Eight), an earlier Swedish modernist group formed in 1912. De Tolv made its first joint exhibition at the Malmö Museum in 1924 and was widely considered a success. The group held regular exhibitions until disbanding in 1934.

     From 1925–1928 Bergh was in Italy where his art continued to undergo stylistic changes. His earlier impressionist paintings were replaced by a striving towards classicism, a firm drawing and closed composition with rich yellow and red elements. Before returning home in 1928, he married Elfriede Aloisi. They had met earlier and he painted her portrait on several occasions. She became his favorite model and he painted her many times in the 1930s and 1940s.

     In the 1930s, writer Torsten Palmér wrote after Bergh’s return from Italy, “Bergh came to return to his spontaneous color choices that characterized his earlier style during his travels to Paris. His paintings of flowers and women, landscape and interiors have an artistic easiness and light, sometimes lightly improvised, often blooming with beauty.”

     From 1939 he was a member of the artist group Aura and participated in the group's exhibitions. He also exhibited separately in Munich in 1924, Florence in 1927, Malmö in 1935, 1937, 1938 and 1943, in Lund in 1939 and 1940, and in Stockholm in 1940.

     A memorial exhibition of his art was shown in Malmö in 1946 and at the Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 1947.      The artist is represented in these public institutions:

• National Museum of Sweden

• The National Museum of Norway

• Gothenburg Museum of Art

• Moderna Museet in Stockholm

• Malmö Art Museum

• Skåne public collections