Welcome to Norway!

It is first and foremost a cultural need, but also a living condition for a small cultural nation like ours to be in an intimate cultural connection with its neighboring countries and the large, old cultural countries in order to develop, renew and refine the distinctiveness that has sprung out of the country's nature and mood.

Finland has long been our neighboring country, but it must be acknowledged that the Norwegian people's knowledge of Finnish art has been deficient.

But we do have excellent knowledge of the masters of Finnish art in the last half of the last century. Highly esteemed is Albert Edelfelt, the great figure composer, the incomparable portrait painter, the classic in Finnish art, who at a young age reached world fame. He was at the same time a friend of the Dane P. Severin Krøyer, the Swede Ernst Josephson and our Christian Krohg, and like these he studied for many years in France. It was national mourning when Albert Edelfelt died, just over 50 years old, and his fatherland gave him a princely funeral.

The famous Eero Järnefelt also has many admirers in Norway, as does the festive and incredibly virtuoso Gunnar Berndtson and Magnus Enckell. We have great admiration for the ingenious art of the genius Helene Schjerfbeck, and also the masterful Akseli Gallen-Kallela, who in an intense and monumental way portrayed the strong uniqueness of her people.

The Norwegian people have had less knowledge of the sculptors from the last century. Best known here is Walter Runeberg, for his excellent portrayal of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, but Wallgren is also highly esteemed. Then we have far better knowledge of the long line of highly gifted sculptors, who nowadays shine over Finnish art, and in Norway as in many other countries highly admired Finland's great sculptor Wäinö Aaltonen, - the artist with the strict monumental attitude and the fine and sensitive portrayal of people.

Finland's great painters Tyko Sallinen, Marcus Collin, Alvar Cawén and Juho Rissanen also have a high star in our country - but many, far too many of Finland's younger visual artists we have so far had far too little knowledge of, a relationship this exhibition will remedy. Well known to us, however, is the monumental painter Lennart Segerstråle, who in the Bank of Finland while the bombs fell, completed the frescoes "Finland wakes up" and "Finland builds up" - frescoes which in their content and in their creation can stand as a beautiful symbols of its proud and freedom-loving Finnish people, who by their intense efforts in the cultural and in the physical field have created the highest respect across the globe.

We thank the Finnish state and the Finnish artists for the spontaneous reception of our invitation, and we wish all our Finnish guests.

Welcome to Norway!

Oslo in January 1950

Ulrik Hendriksen, Chairman of the Board of Visual Artists