Sten Eklund was a Swedish painter and illustrator whose work combined narrative invention with a precise, often meticulous visual language. Eklund studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm from 1966 to 1971, a period during which he developed an interest in enigmatic devices, constructions, and mechanical forms. Early in his career, he painted these imagined machines on glass or canvas, creating scenes that suggested systems, functions, or purposes that remained deliberately obscure.

Eklund is best known for his extensive project Kullahusets hemligheter (Kullahuset’s Secrets), a visual narrative centered on the fictional nineteenth-century botanist J. M. G. Paléen. The work consists of 53 hand-colored c...