Born in Stockholm, Ivan Grünewald was the son of the Swedish Expressionist painter and forerunner of Swedish Modernism, Isaac Grünewald and Sigrid Hjertén, a modernist Swedish painter and textile designer. In 1920, when Iván was 9, his parents moved from Stockholm to Paris where they all remained until 1932.
Growing up in a highly creative household, Ivàn was exposed to art from an early age. After assisting his father in the preparations for the Stockholm Exhibition in 1930, Ivàn Grünewald attended the Académie Scandinave in Paris and then he studied at Konsthögskolan (the Royal Institute of Art) in Stockholm and developed his own style through an exploration of colour. Grünewald became a key figure in Sweden’s mid-twentieth century art scene.
His compositions often balance themes of identity, isolation and inner life. Grünewald held several solo exhibitions in Stockholm mainly at Galerie Moderne and numerous group exhibitions around Sweden. Just before his 1952 exhibition at Galerie Moderne, Grünewald announced that since the beginning of the 1950s, he had ceased to work in colour and was painting exclusively in white, black and grey.