(b Malmö, 10 Sept 1916).

 Swedish painter. He was self-taught as a painter, though he learnt much from his association with Max Walter Svanberg, with whom he founded the short-lived Minotaurgruppen in 1943. Three years later, with the Swedish painter Anders Österlin (b 1926) and others, they formed the Imaginistgruppen, which developed a specifically Swedish brand of Surrealism. Their activities, which continued until 1956, were connected from 1949 with those of the Cobra group, as was apparent from the work they exhibited at Hultén’s Colibi Gallery in Malmö in 1954. Hultén’s own works at this time were painterly and were composed of fragmentary motifs of both a common and an exotic character, as in City Woman Kissing (1951; Malmö, Kstmus.). The poetic quality of his Imaginist works was carried through into his Abstract Expressionist period, from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, in paintings such as Windsign (1961; Malmö, Kstmus.). After two extended visits to Central Africa, his work, while still surrealistic in expression, became full of allusions to exuberant tropical vegetation and to tribal culture.