Night Glow

landscape

Sohlberg's work from the 1880s shows the influence of the Naturalist painting of this period, but on his début at the Kristiania Autumn Exhibition in 1894 with Night Glow (1893; National Gallery, Oslo), it was evident that his painting was already developing away from the Naturalist tradition. In the following years, Sohlberg continued to evolve the artistic programme that formed Night Glow, but this painting already exhibits most of the characteristics that were to dominate his mature work. In Night Glow, without distancing himself from the naturalistic form of the objects observed, Sohlberg reproduces nature at the moment of its greatest intensity.

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About the Artist

Harald Oskar Sohlberg

1869 – 1935

Norwegian painter and printmaker. Sohlberg decided to be a painter when young, but his father wished him to follow a thorough training as a craftsman. Sohlberg therefore enrolled at the Royal School of Drawing in Kristiania (Christiania until 1877, now Oslo) in 1885 under the interior designer Wilhelm Krogh (1829-1913) and stayed at the school until 1890. Subsequently, he attended night classes under the graphic artist and painter Johan Nordhagen (1856-1956) both in the autumn of 1906 and also from 1911 to 1917, when he concentrated on printmaking. Sohlberg painted his first pictures while staying in the Valdres region to the north-west of Kristiania in summer 1889. The following summer he painted with Sven Jörgensen (1861-1940) at Slagen, and in autumn 1891 he was a pupil of Erik Werenskiold and Eilif Peterssen in Kristiania. For some months during the winter of 1891-2 Sohlberg attended Kristian Zahrtmann's art school in Copenhagen. He also studied for four months in 1894 under Harriet Backer and Eilif Peterssen. Sohlberg is particularly known for his depictions of the mountains of Rondane and the town of Roros. His perhaps most well-recognized painting is his 'Winter's Night in Rondane' from 1913-14.

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