Swedish painter, illustrator and author who popularised döstädning (death-cleaning). She died on March 12th 2026, aged "between 80 and 100".
Magnusson grew up near Gothenburg. Her career was as a painter and illustrator, working in clean lines and bright colours. She moved 17 times within Sweden and abroad, following her husband Lars's work as a manager. Together they had five children. She was a heavy smoker for years. In her later years she lived in a two-bed flat in Stockholm.
Her debut, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death-Cleaning, became a global bestseller in 2017, when she was 81. Two Japanese authors, Marie Kondo and Nagisa Tatsumi, had published on decluttering before her, but Magnusson caught the imagination of the overstuffed West. Her second book, The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly, advocated lively curiosity as well as gin, laughter and Marabou bars. At the time of her death she had started on a book called Death-Cleaning from the Afterlife.
Döstädning, or death-cleaning, is a Swedish tradition of reducing one's possessions in old age so that children are not burdened with sorting through accumulated belongings. Magnusson drew on three personal experiences of delayed döstädning—after the deaths of her mother, her mother-in-law and her husband Lars. She argued the practice was not really about death but about helping people live more lightly in the present.
Hoffer's Discovery: The grand act of a dying institution is to issue a newly revised, enlarged edition of the policies and procedures manual.