A DANISH INSPIRATION IN THE BERGEN ENVIRONMENT

Asbjørn Brekke and Olav Herman-Hansen tell about Povl C.:

In the early summer of 1955, Povl Christensen came to Bergen for the first time. He was to hold an exhibition at the Art Association. The study studio, which at the time mainly had the task of arranging further education courses for visual artists, was looking for a skilled teacher for the autumn session and succeeded in getting the young Danish graphic artist to accept an invitation. Here he taught in autumn 1955 and spring 1956, when he also had an exhibition in the National Museum, Stockholm. He then started teaching graphics at Bergen's Art and Craft School in the autumn and continued at BKHS in the spring of 1957 until he fell ill and ended his teaching career in Bergen.

Two who have received strong impulses from Povl C. and who have also continued the educational activities he started, are Asbjørn Brekke and Olav Herman-Hansen. In a conversation, they talk about Povl and his work in Bergen.

Povl brought metal graphics to Bergen. What had previously been taught in graphics at the art schools was scattered and sporadic and limited essentially to linoleum cuts and woodcuts.

The Bergen School of Norwegian Graphics begins with Povl C. He came here with a suitcase full of the most wonderful French tools, ordered a solid eraser press from Copenhagen (it is still in use at the Vestlandets Art Academy) and set about such distinctive techniques as xylography and metal graphics. While teaching, he worked on his own stuff. Perhaps he first drew a sketch of the material itself, but preferably he stuck directly on the stick or in the plate without any preliminary work. He worked so recklessly that it sometimes seemed incredible that he produced graphic results. But it did, thanks to his amazing insight and inner control. The hard and uneven zinc requires a lot of manual effort. With great zeal and commitment, he worked like a maniac for long periods. The night could pass for printing. This is how demanding and striking works such as Askeladden and Bergensiana were created.

Slivers of chipboard cut into the fists, blood trickled into the cutting grooves while the stick was twisted and pressed so that the artist could bring out the special image qualities. The desire for pictorial expression forced the superb craftsmanship. Povl worked as he was and as he lived. Reckless and mild, strong and weak, a large man of 1.72 — a Renaissance figure in a sober and rational time that hardly left room for Renaissance figures.

He broke into all that we had accepted of "eternal truths", a foreigner who showed exciting irreverence for the dogmatically established in art and social life. He dared to touch even exalted authorities such as J. C. Dahl and Nikolai Astrup. Admiration for Dahl's art of drawing was probably expressed, but also contempt for those who submissively hung the halo on him. And of Astrup there was both good and bad, he stated as he walked around with his students in the Biledgalleriet. In Povl's mouth, the statements became absolutes. He could sometimes seem profoundly unfair in his assessments of the students. But one had to risk the mistakes, because he gave so much both in teaching and socializing. He never forced his visual vision onto others. That is why he was also respected. The students discovered that the big man from Copenhagen was totally unsnobbish. Fiercely temperamental, he then also turned against what he perceived to be a narrow-minded bourgeois attitude in the city here in the west.

The strong colors of the western nature struck him. He had an eye for this. That is why he raged against the artists who created Bergen pictures with muted eastern color. The violence of Western Norway's mountainous nature and the proximity to the great sea demanded a clean and strong color attitude. He had discovered that the coastal peoples around the northern Atlantic Ocean have a natural community that provides the basis for a common visual attitude far from, for example, the eastern Norwegian. Povl had visions of an Atlantic exhibition that would bring together the Orkney Islands, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and coastal Norway. Iceland had made a strong impression on him. One can also understand his admiration for William Heinesen. The burlesque, juicy and damn devilish account of "The Lost Players" must have appealed to the luxuriant Povl C. He spoke of Bergen and Western Norway as a terribly important place. Didn't talk about how we should produce pictures of nature, but philosophized about the landscape in a way you haven't heard before. The essential thing was to express an experience in relation to the dimensions of nature.

Povl C. taught in such a way that his young students expressed themselves creatively. For Asbjørn Brekke and Olav Herman-Hansen, it is clear that during the short time he was here, Povl Christensen gave the Bergen environment a vitamin injection that should have a long-term effect. At the same time, the meeting with Vestlandet was an inspiring experience that was reflected in his own art.

Reidar Storaas