2019: Harald Sohlberg: Painting Norway

Harald Sohlberg, one of Norway's greatest painters, created works that evoke the wild nature of the Nordic landscape, from the softness of its flower fields to the harsh beauty of its winters. This first major UK exhibition of Sohlberg's works celebrates 150 years since the artist's birth, with a unique opportunity to see these magnificent paintings in the UK. With close to 100 works, we showcase the breadth and ambiguity of his work, and its enduring relevance in today's world. 

“Paintings hum with the strange glow of the midnight sun” Time Out ★★★★ 
Captures “our awed human response to the grandeur of nature.” 
The Times ★★★★  
“An atmospheric snapshot of a different time and place” The Telegraph 
“Beautiful, mysterious and haunting” New Statesman 

Like Edvard Munch, Sohlberg strongly denied the influence of other contemporary artists, disassociating himself from discussions about where he belonged in the history of art. Instead, he relegated the origins of his artistic awakening to his own psyche and to the intense stories and mythologies of the Norwegian land. Consequently, Sohlberg’s paintings depict a world which is at once fantastical, yet familiar.

This major retrospective will show the breadth and ambiguity of Sohlberg’s art whilst revealing its relevance beyond Norway’s borders. It will trace Sohlberg’s entire artistic career, from his earliest production as a twenty-year-old in 1889 through to the last year of his life and reveal influences such as Norwegian Naturalism and Symbolism, which he was exposed to during his training in Copenhagen and Christiania. The exhibition will include Sohlberg’s iconic landscape, Winter Night in the Mountains, regarded as the ‘National Painting of Norway’ and the enchanting Fisherman's Cottage. 

This exhibition also featured a new installation by Mariele Neudecker, And Then The World Changed Colour: Breathing Yellow, inspired by Sohlberg's Fisherman's Cottage.

Exhibition generously supported by Sparebankstiftelsen DNB, the Royal Norwegian Embassy and The Franey Foundation

In Partnership with National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo and Museum Wiesbaden

Official Paint Partner

Image credits: Harald Sohlberg, Fisherman's Cottage, 1906, Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Edward Byron Smith.
Flower Meadow in the North, 1905, The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Norway.
Summer Night, 1899, The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Norway.