Biography

Norwegian painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He studied in Christiania (later Kristiania, now Oslo) in 1873-75 under Julius Middelthun (1820-1886), who discovered his unusual gift for drawing, and then at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich (1876-79). Among his early paintings, Female Half-nude (1877; Bergen, Billedgalleri) is typical in revealing an interest in individual personality and psychology even in a traditional academic subject. In 1878, while on a visit to Kristiania, Werenskiold met the collector and editor Peter Christien Asbjørnsen (1812-1885) and was engaged as an illustrator for his new edition of Norwegian fairy tales (Kristiania, 1879). Together with Theodor Kittelsen (1857-1914), he continued to contribute illustrations to Absjørnsen's publications. In his drawings for tales such as 'The three princesses in the mountain-in-the-blue' (Kristiania, 1887), he achieved a striking combination of realistic observation, fantasy and humour, his imaginary creatures being especially successful.

During the 1880s Werenskiold was also active as a painter. He left Munich early in 1881 and settled in Paris where he came to know the work of contemporary French artists. He was initially intrigued by both Naturalism and Impressionism, but eventually found it impossible to abandon the feeling for form and line that he sensed as lacking in these styles.

In 1883 he returned to Norway and soon became the chief promoter of a strictly national art, based on the study of Norwegian landscape and folk life. Girls of Telemark (1883; Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo) and Peasant Burial (1885; Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo) are naturalistically detailed studies of Norwegian daily life. At this time Werenskiold began his long series of portraits representing outstanding compatriots that eventually included Edvard Grieg (1892; Nationalmuseum, Stockholm) and Henrik Ibsen (1895; Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo).

During 1888-89 he worked in Bonnat's studio in Paris. He admired Manet and van Gogh. In 1889 he wrote a critique of the Copenhagen exhibition of works by French Impressionists, in which he characterised Cézanne, Guillaumin and Manet as the true Impressionists.