Galleri Balder presents key photographers who worked in Norway during the last half of the 19th century . The collection covers both landscapes and pictures of everyday life, all taken by Knud Knudsen, Axel Lindahl and William Dobson Valentine and others. Photographer and fruit farmer Knud Knudsen (1832–1915) was a major pioneer of Norwegian lanscape photography. He was apprentice to Marcus Selmer before he started his own business in Bergen in 1864. Knudsen developed his own artistic expression and has been one of the great trendsetters in Norway.
Swede Axel Lindahl (1832–1906) was Knudsen’s most ardent competitor in the market. Lindahl made a great career as a portrait and landscape photographer in Sweden before he moved to Norway. The reason for his move was probably that business prospects for landscape photography were better in Norway, which was experiencing a rapid increase in foreign tourism. He also did several photographs of the Sami people in the north of Norway.
The Scottish photographer William Dobson Valentine (1844–1907) visited Norway several times between 1888 and 1893. His magnificent and monumental landscape pictures were produced for a fastidious international market. Unfortunately, all the negatives with Valentine’s Norway pictures were destroyed in a fire in 1961.
The exhibition shows a series of so-called “Mammoth plates” by William Dobson Valentine. “Mammoth plates” are large contact copies with a fantastic level of detail and range of tones. These photographs by Valentine were ”found” in Germany a few years ago and are very rare.
Swede Axel Lindahl (1832–1906) was Knudsen’s most ardent competitor in the market. Lindahl made a great career as a portrait and landscape photographer in Sweden before he moved to Norway. The reason for his move was probably that business prospects for landscape photography were better in Norway, which was experiencing a rapid increase in foreign tourism. He also did several photographs of the Sami people in the north of Norway.
The Scottish photographer William Dobson Valentine (1844–1907) visited Norway several times between 1888 and 1893. His magnificent and monumental landscape pictures were produced for a fastidious international market. Unfortunately, all the negatives with Valentine’s Norway pictures were destroyed in a fire in 1961.
The exhibition shows a series of so-called “Mammoth plates” by William Dobson Valentine. “Mammoth plates” are large contact copies with a fantastic level of detail and range of tones. These photographs by Valentine were ”found” in Germany a few years ago and are very rare.
Art and national identity
What does it mean to be Norwegian? What is peculiar to the Norwegian? After 1814, it was suddenly important to distinguish between Danish and Norwegian. It was important to find the difference and find out how it was before the Danish time. Norwegian identity, the typical Norwegian – this became important for both self-esteem and cohesion. It was also important to create an identity in relation to Sweden. And in one area we soon found out that we could mark ourselves. The mountain scenery … especially on the west coast and north mountains and fjords soon became national symbols. Poets wrote romantic poems and songs, and in a romantic perspective one also looked for what was Norwegian in medieval history and in Norse mythology. It was also believed that nature influenced us, and many sought for connection between nature and human beings – how it had influenced us who had grown up in Norwegian nature.The photographs in this exhibition may seem strange and strange to today’s electronic image stream; Both the landscapes, the people and the colors belong to another, strange time? But if we look a bit closer to them, we quickly find that they have a lot to convey. All photographs were taken in the period 1860 – 1900. They were taken by some of the foremost photographers, and they mainly focus on Norway and the characteristic features of the Norwegian. The interest in national identity, recognition and characteristic was relevant throughout the 19th century. These pictures were taken at the same time as Henrik Ibsen wrote Peer Gynt and Vildanden. In both of these dramas, Ibsen refers to precisely photography – both as a metaphor and as a dream of “the new era”. Peer Gynt I understand as an attempt at a characteristic of something typical Norwegian.
Robert Meyer
Voyage Pittoresque – Photography in Norway 1860 – 1900
01.02 – 03.03.2019
Galleri Balder
Riddervolds gate 9,
Galleri Balder
Riddervolds gate 9,
Oslo
