Adelsteen Normann
1848 - 1918
Adelsteen Normann was born on 1st May, 1848 at Bodo, Norway. He started his working life in business, but gave this up before he was twenty and went to Dusseldorf to study painting. He worked in Dusseldorf from 1869 to 1873 with the well known charismatic Russian professor Eugen Ducker, who encouraged him in his imaginative treatment of landscape.The grandeur of the fjords fascinated Normann the most and he was always preoccupied with trying to recreate their atmosphere. He loved Norwegian rural life and the harmony this seemed to have with the surrounding landscape. Paintings of fishermen, peasants and small villages set against the snow are typical of this. Normann's work was very much appreciated during his lifetime. He exhibited in Berlin, Vienna, London, Dusseldorf and Munich and also at the Salon de Paris from 1882. Here he received an honourable mention in 1884 and a bronze medal in 1889. His work can be found in many important museums including Cologne, Dusseldorf, Liverpool, Stockholm and Sydney.