Thomas Dellert Dellacroix

Dellacroix in Stockholm in 1993

Thomas Dellacroix (born July 12, 1953), né Thomas Knutson Dellert Bergh, is a Swedish artist who works with forms such as painting, collage, and sculpture, as well as music, video and poetry. In Sweden he is known primarily as Thotte Dellert (first name pronounced Tawteh) and has also done work as Tommy Dollar.

Dellacroix's work includes projects for the Absolut Vodka Collection. He has had over 50 exhibitions in and around Europe and the United States, and is represented in many museums as well as official and private collections all over the world. He has directed The Rocky Horror Show at Chinateatern, and played leading parts in musicals like Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Two for the Seesaw, and Me and My Girl. His stage debut was in a Stockholm cabaret called AlexCab (sv:AlexCab) in 1975.

He has designed costumes and sets for theatre and television, book covers, opera posters and record sleeves. In music, he has done cult recordings like "Upp till camp" (1979) and "Welcome to New China"(1980). His complicated visual language is direct, sometimes even violent, but always with a humanistic approach. Although he feels a need to explore the darker side of mankind, he uses irony and humour as his tools. In this tradition most of his art deals with the history of the 20th century.

Dellacroix puts a lot of attention on the accuracy and truthfulness of his art works. For example, for years he has collected newspaper clippings with apocalyptic headlines, and fetish memorabilia from the last century to build the backbone of his documentary art form. He also incorporates sound and video collages that give direct links to the historical episodes that his art pieces depict.

During his early years as an artist working and living in New York, he moved in the same circle of artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. His friendship with legendary pop-artist Andy Warhol gave way to mutual inspiration; Warhol's Camouflage prints were inspired by Dellert's early prints, while Dellert created a series of silk-screens based on the Warhol technique. Even though some of their works look similar at first glance, looking closer one realizes that Dellacroix, brought up in a socially aware Sweden, exchanged Warhol's fascination for glamour and beauty with real life. He used a flashy pop art language of expression, printing dramatic political events.

Dellacroix has moved many times throughout his career, living in places including Stockholm, Paris, Stuttgart, Antigua, New York, London and Barcelona.

In 2001 he started a collaboration with a female artist Agnieszka Dellfina, founding Studio Utopia. In that period, he decided to change his name to Dellacroix from Dellert.