Norwegian painters have their definite favorites when it comes to Danish artists - Købke, L. A. Ring, J. F. Willumsen. In our eyes, they stand out as some of the strongest artist characters in the Nordics. To these favorites we should now be able to add a new one: Niels Larsen Stevns.
Kunstnernes Hus and the Nordic Art Association are very happy to be able to show a large exhibition of Niels Larsen Stevns' works. While he was alive, he was unknown to the Norwegian audience, but his five pictures at the official Danish exhibition last year created great interest in his art.
In fact, it was probably only towards the end of his life that Larsen Stevns received a deeper understanding of his art at home in Denmark. I must admit that did not know who he was until I came face to face with some fascinating watercolors of his - in Italy. It was during the Venice Biennale in 1938. The impression was strong. There was something about his expressive way of using the color that immediately made one awake. Precisely in the company where all the world's routine and beauty painting met, it was an event to meet real images where the tasteful was given way to a personal experience of the essence of color and life-giving possibilities.
The external events of his life are not strange. He was born on Zealand in 1864. He went to Zahrtmann and became Joachim Skovgård's assistant while he was working on the frescoes in Viborg Cathedral. Slowly he worked his way up to his deeply personal view of the painting and found the means that enabled him to express himself accordingly. In the early 1930s, he received his fresco commission for H. C. Andersen's memorial hall in Odense, and shortly after the task of decorating the Library in Hjørring.
Niels Larsen Stevns died in the autumn of 1941. He was then ill and almost paralyzed. But just recently, he made, with the help of his wheelchair, some intense, moving images that could stand as living symbols of the spirit's victory over the flesh. His struggle to realize his vision of life is one of the most gripping in Nordic art ever.

Find Nielssen.