Leon Aurdal

After graduating from secondary school, A. worked for a time at a shipbroker's office in Bergen and at the same time attended Asor Hansen's painting school in the evenings. A painting from this time has been preserved: Winsner's public bath, Bergen, 1911, held in richly nuanced denominations of light gray and off-white. According to Gunnar Janson, the picture should have many of the character traits that later came to characterize his art.

In 1914, A. moved to Kristiania and made his debut in 1916 at the Young Painters' summer exhibition in the Kristiania Art Association with a couple of quiet depictions of nature. Later, a number of cityscapes and landscapes followed, moody studies with a romantic touch, often painted in dusk or dawn light. Among these can be mentioned the slightly stylized night atmosphere Gas lantern (1918), which seems to reveal impulses from Edvard Munch and some of our New Impressionists, as well as the fine tone Slottsparken (1918) which was noted by several critics. He also painted still lifes and interiors, among them the strictly composed Interior from Linstowsgate (1917) with his friend Thoralf Lerdal at the easel and a female model. Like so many of A.'s youth works, this picture is characterized by a richly nuanced play of denominations and is characterized by a melancholic mood, a sadness that has been linked to the young artist's lack of self-confidence, sense of isolation and almost hopeless financial situation. A. belonged to a middle generation in Norwegian art and felt in his youth and often later that he was in the shadow of the Norwegian Matisse students. In director Pietro Koch, however, A. found a faithful mentor. In the summer of 1918 he painted in Hadeland and in 1920 he was able to travel to France.

In Paris, classically harmonious, simple and balanced had come into play. A new classicism began to assert itself. Cubism had awakened a strong interest in a theorizing and geometrizing constructivism. A. became a student of one of constructivism's warm advocates, the Argentine Pedro Araujo, and of the semi-cubist André Lhote, who was equally typical of the time. He also received impulses from André Derain.

The principles of image construction (based on cubism) that A. now learned to know, came to have a liberating effect on him. Already Self-Portrait and the dark-toned, almost old-fashioned Mother and Child (both 1920) are characterized by a tightening of the form, with an emphasis on the purely plastic qualities. This tendency was further accentuated in the 1920s. In the voluminous, emotionally gripping, but not entirely redeeming composition, The Family (1925) the influence of Lhote's half-cubism is felt. A more convincing overall effect belongs to the portrait of his wife Kristmar: Kvinneportrett (1925). With its sharply pointed, slightly cool shape and an ascetic grey-toned color that is only enlivened by the apron's pale red checks, the image is a characteristic example of the new practicality of the 1920s. This also applies to the male portrait Henriksen (1927), where the form has a less classicist stylized, more naturalistic character. Even more spontaneous and direct, the motif appears reproduced in Summer Day by the Fjord (1927) with the sensitively nuanced denominations of silver grey. After 1930, A.'s art developed towards greater freedom both compositionally and colouristically. In a number of landscapes, partly with motifs from the archipelago (Skjeløy 1931), partly from the inland (Spring in Sør-Fron), he showed his original joy of painting and rich feeling for nature. A highlight of his production is the vivid, broadly painted picture Semsvann (1938, National Gallery, Oslo). Despite the strict constructive structure, this picture seems benevolently simple and natural.

In A.'s art, there is often a certain conflict between, on the one hand, spontaneity-nature, on the other hand, system-abstraction-decorative simplification. Alongside his more spontaneously perceived landscapes, he also continued his form experiments in the 1930s in more or less cubist or non-figurative compositions. He sought Georg Jacobsen's teaching in order to find a means of merging the various tendencies in his art, but this would not be entirely successful for him.

The colouristically high-pitched Vestlendinger, also called Uværet kommer, (1940) ushered in a new phase in his art. It is characterized by decorative simplification, a freer use of color and a surface structure that can be reminiscent of tapestry. Larger unbroken color planes alternate with small mottled strokes. In Vestlendinger there is a certain conflict between the rigidly constructed landscape and the more naturalistically perceived figures. På lokalbåten (1945, Nasjonalgalleriet) is of the same character, but fuller and coloristically more muted.

After the war, A. expressed himself more freely than ever before in simplified landscapes, figures and portraits. The decorative simplification is the longest in the portrait of Siri (1947, Bergen Picture Gallery) and in his last large picture Fiskertorvet (1948).

Kristen Holbø

Kristen Holbø was a landscape painter and, unlike most others of her generation – who were drawn to Paris and French art – oriented herself towards Italy. Through his art, he has primarily given a pictorial interpretation of the people and landscape in Gudbrandsdalen.

Holbø grew up at Sygard Holbø in Vågå. He was a noble boy, but gave up the farm to a younger brother to become an artist. In the spring of 1890, he became a student at Bergslien's painting school and the following spring at the Royal School of Art. After a stay at home, he attended Eilif Peterssen's and Harriet Backer's painting school 1893–94. Holbø joined a circle of young painters who sought away from the 1880s' clear-cut reality painting towards an atmospheric painting with deeper color and a somewhat simplified expression. The artists continued to take their point of departure from the study of nature. In the summer of 1894, Holbø stayed in Vågå together with 9 other artists from the same generation – the good friend Halfdan Egedius, Lars Jorde, Thorvald Erichsen, Alfred Hauge, Oluf Wold-Torne, Alice Pihl, Johanna Bugge, Lalla Hvalstad and Kris Laache. The stay, which in art history has been called the "Vågå summer", was fruitful for everyone, and several returned to Kristiania with atmospheric paintings from Vågå. Holbø worked this summer with illustrations for Edvard Storm's Dølevisor.

In the autumn of 1897, Holbø traveled to Copenhagen to study with the painter Kristian Zahrtmann. He stayed there four winters. Several of Holbø's friends were also pupils at the school, e.g. Wold-Torne, Erichsen and Jorde. Zahrtmann's use of warm and cold colors and his build-up of volume with the help of angular facets were something that several of the Norwegian students took to heart. At Holbø, the influence of Zahrtmann can be seen especially in the first years after school. In the summers from 1898 to 1904, Holbø stayed in whole or in part at Nedre Sjodalsvatn in Jotunheimen, where the family had set up a bow. Here he painted monumental mountain pictures in a roughly hewn and broad-lined style. The colors are deep, and he particularly used ultramarine set against warm colours.

In 1902, Holbø received Schäffer's scholarship and traveled with the painter Simon Torbjørnsen on a one-year study stay via Amsterdam to Paris. They stayed in the city over the winter and traveled home via London and Antwerp. Rembrandt's paintings in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam made a big impression; the influence can be felt in Portrait of my mother (1904) in Lillehammer Kunstmuseum.

Holbø married in 1905, received Henrichsen's scholarship the same year and went on a study trip again. The couple traveled to Italy via Dresden and Munich and were gone for two years. In Italy he lived and worked in Rome, Florence, Siena, Volterra, Cività d'Antino and Naples. In Naples he painted with Wold-Torne and Jorde. In the village of Cività d'Antino in the Abruzzi, he joined the circle around Zahrtmann, who especially appreciated the painting Evening at the Abruzzi.

After returning home, Holbø lived at Sygard Holbø until 1912, when the family moved to Lillehammer. He continued to paint at Nedre Sjodalsvatn in the summers of 1908–10 and created several of his main works during this period. The largest landscape painting and one of his most important works is Øvre Sjodalsvatn from 1908. The following year he painted Night and Fjellelv. The former shows Holbøbua in moonlight, an atmospheric painting in blue tones.

Like Harald Sohlberg, Holbø seeks the monumental in the mountains and uses the blue colors to create grandeur and distance. The colors are preferably cool and clear, preferably with contrasting effects such as red against green and blue against orange. The technique of applying the color in thick pasty strokes, as well as accentuating the large lines in the landscape, gives an expressive style to his paintings. The somewhat rough style he developed gave a magnificent expression to the rugged beauty of Jotunheimen.

In 1909, Holbø also held his first solo exhibition at Kristiania Kunstforening. 1922–24 the family visited Italy again. Holbø painted i.a. from Florence, Rome, Naples, Amalfi and Assisi. The return journey went via Munich, Dresden, Berlin and Copenhagen.

Kristen Holbø is primarily a landscape painter, but he has also done pictures with motifs from folk songs, the Bible, from working life in the countryside and Italian folk life, as well as horse compositions, interiors, etc. As a landscape painter, he primarily depicts his home village and Jotunheimen. For a couple of summers he also painted from Hvasser and Tjøme.

Holbø illustrated Edvard Storm's Dølevisor 1898, the book Norge 1814–1914 and Th. Casparis Vildren 1927. In 1912 he executed a stone relief of Prillar-Guri for the Kringen monument in Sel. 1912–17 he decorated merchant Einar Lunde's dining room in Lillehammer with 7 large wall panels built over legends and folk songs. There are motifs from Sigurd Fåvnesbane and from the song about Villemann and Magnill. The murals were moved to Kulturhuset Banken in 1994.

From the 1920s, Holbø experienced a difficult period. His paintings were seen as traditional painting and did not catch the taste of the time. The coloring also became dull and dark, and the simplifications produced stiff and angular depictions of figures. In the last period, from the end of the 1940s, Holbø achieved a new and colorful freedom in several smaller paintings, one example being Interior from Kvarberg (1951).

Kristen Holbø exhibited regularly, both domestically and abroad. From 1946 he received the State's artist's salary. He is represented in i.a. The National Gallery, Bergen Art Museum, Trøndelag Art Museum, Rogaland Art Museum, Lillehammer Art Museum, De Sandvigske Samlinger Maihaugen, Lillehammer, Malmö Art Museum and National Museum in Stockholm.