Karl Johan Lilliesköld was born in Sweden 1954
The youngest child of four he grew up in Stockholm  

The exhibition debut was made in 1977, followed by further oneman shows around Sweden
A continental debut took place in Paris in 1982 
The same year Karl Johan moved to settle down in London. During this period he exhibited at local exhibitions and also collaborated with a Chicago gallery 
In 1988 he moved to Lucca, northern Italy, where he since live and work, as well as in Hälleforsnäs, south of Stockholm               Karl Johan has three daughters, Gabriella and Isabella both born in England whilst Beatrice was born in Italy
Karl Johan has been an exhibiting artist since the mid-seventies and have exhibited his work at galleries and venues in
Italy, Sweden, England, Germany, France and the U.S.A.

From the debut and onwards during the seventies Karl Johan Lilliesköld produced and exhibited a contemporary form of surrealistic work.   
Often relatively small canvasses in dark claire-obscure, laden with symbolistic and enigmatic content.

...In the early eighties a similar content continued, but larger canvasses and a more simplified composition style and colour scheme emerged... .It may sound contradictory, but in the nineteeneighties my work went simultaneously much more "modern", yet it in some cases also looked more "medeival" than in my early paintings. At the time I was very much in love with pre-renassaince and gothic painting, but liked to lift out that stark way of reproducing the most significant elements in a picture and then simplify the rest, to emphazise that flatness which is not really "flat", but indeed very sensual and tactile...

K.J. Lilliesköld april 2000