Unknown Astrup found

New works on display in first U.S. exhibition

Photo: Thomas Clark/Clark Art Institute
A previously unknown painting by Nikolai Astrup, “Gray spring evening and flowering fruit trees” (1909, oil on canvas. Collection of Lise M. Stolt-Nielsen.) is now on display at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., in the first-ever Astrup exhibit in the United States.

NTB

A work called “Gray spring evening and flowering fruit trees” dated to 1909 has found its place in a large Nikolai Astrup exhibition at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass.

The first Nikolai Astrup exhibition in the United States ever has just opened, with 100 works on display, and in the process of creating the exhibition, private collections of a more unknown nature surfaced, according to  Petter Snare, director of KODE art museum in Bergen.

Thirteen new works signed by Jølster’s great artist have been discovered. Most of these are prints of famous motifs. But one painting with a motif of an unknown nature stands out. “Gray spring evening and flowering fruit trees” was unknown both to Astrup connoisseurs at KODE and at the local Astrup museum in Jølster, the artist’s home in Norway.

The painting is in place at the U.S. exhibition, and in October, the entire exhibition will be sent back to KODE in Bergen, with the “new” Astrup painting on board.

“Norway’s national treasure Nikolai Astrup has never before been in the United States itself, but now the first ever Astrup exhibition has opened in the United States. It has created so much excitement that there even was a rush for new American Astrup enthusiasts to get  tickets to the museum’s St. Hans celebration,” a press release from KODE reported.

This article originally appeared in the July 9, 2021, issue of The Norwegian American. To subscribe, visit SUBSCRIBE or call us at (206) 784-4617.