The Art Nouveau Collection 

Since its opening in 2003, the art museum has gradually assembled a collection of artifacts representative of the Art Nouveau period in Norway and the world. With an emphasis on Norwegian content, the works in the collection have been selected to illustrate the diverse nature of Art Nouveau in terms of materials, creative expression and aesthetics.

On our website you can find some relevant information about our collection, however if you wish to have further details on specific objects we invite you to visit Digitalt Museum or Europeana. 

Art Nouveau was a European movement within architecture, decorative arts, and fine art that took place during the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. In Scandinavia it is known more commonly under the German name Jugendstil. The movement was linked to the emergence of modernity. New materials and techniques were explored, and the classical models of the past were abandoned in favour of creative forms of expression inspired by the organic vitality of nature. The style was characterized by an equivalence among the arts and a recognition of the importance of craft. Its most universally recognizable trait was the cultivation of linework, whether as an undulating whiplash or a geometrically straight line. Asymmetry was also typical.

Book illustration in Norway underwent a major change in the 1890s. Designs and illustrations for books and their covers had previously been produced in Copenhagen, but as the turn of the century approached, a number of Norwegian artists and architects also took an interest in book design. Text and image, formerly two separate forms of expression, merged into a single art form.

The book Sjøfugl (Seabirds), written and illustrated by Thorolf Holmboe, is one of the finest examples of 1890s Norwegian book art. Holmboe was the first fine artist in Norway to pursue book design as an art form in its own right. Sjøfugl was published in 1896 by Johan Fredrikson in Bergen. It shows Holmboe’s love of nature and coastal life in northern Norway, with drawings of birdlife and more abstract depictions of jellyfish and seaweed. The illustrations are considered to represent a distinctive Norwegian version of Art Nouveau in their choice of motifs. The design itself is based on more international trends, using lighter, brighter colours and avoiding typical Norwegian elements such as coiled dragons and woodcarvings.

Norske Digte (Norwegian Poetry, 1893) is likewise a fine example of Holmboe’s more international leanings, and an early example of this influence in Norwegian applied art.

The dragon style, which evolved out of the mid-19th-century national romantic movement, was a deliberate attempt to create a distinctive Norwegian style.

At the turn of the century, the dragon style could be found in architecture, furniture and silverware. Norwegian nationalist sentiment, culminating in the dissolution of the union with Sweden in 1905, was the driving force behind the style’s popularity. When the latest European trend, Art Nouveau, entered Norwegian architecture and art at the turn of the century, it fused with the dragon style to create a uniquely Norwegian version of Art Nouveau.

Glass is a material with unique design properties. Renewed interest in glass art in the late 19th century resulted in new creative opportunities for Art Nouveau artists working in glass.

European glassworks experimented with new methods, colours and forms. Émile Gallé (1846–1904), a French artist, developed a special technique known as cameo glass, inspired by Asian glassmaking traditions. It involved applying thin layers of differently coloured glass to a glass body, and then cutting and etching to create multicoloured motifs of plants or animals. The technique became popular throughout Europe.

Very few artists produced Art Nouveau cameo glass in Norway, but one exception was Axel Enoch Boman (1875–1948). Boman was already an established glass artist in his native Sweden when he received a commission from Hadeland Glassverk at Jevnaker in 1911. He produced 137 pieces in total, 114 of which were one of a kind. All the pieces are signed, dated and numbered, and bear the Hadeland Glassverk stamp. Like Gallé, Boman drew inspiration for his motifs from nature’s wealth of shapes and colours.

Of all the arts and crafts, none has developed to such an extent and acquired such importance in our country as the art of jewellery making.

Henrik Grosch, review of the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris

Jewellery making occupies a particularly important place in the history of fine craft and Art Nouveau in Norway. The Norwegian jewellery community at the turn of the 20th century was large and outward-looking. Japanese art and enamel works, featuring insect motifs and local flora, and European Art Nouveau were obvious sources of inspiration. During the most productive part of the Art Nouveau period, Norwegian jewellery was considered among the finest in Europe, especially in the enamel field. Gustav Gaudernack’s dragonfly bowl from 1908 is a key work.

Elsewhere in Europe, floral motifs and soft lines also dominated jewellery design. Artists were now trying to produce more abstract depictions of nature, such as stalks swaying in the wind or morning dew on a leaf.

The little butterfly brooch, signed Marius Hammer, is typical of its time with its soft lines, pastel and translucent colours, and flat form. The butterfly motif alludes to an ever-changing world in perpetual motion.

Until the mid-19th century, Japan was closed to the outside world. When the country opened its borders, Japanese prints and artifacts began appearing in European markets in large numbers, and Japanese art quickly became popular.

Many artists were captivated by the lyrical, refined depictions of nature and were especially fascinated by the asymmetrical compositions and the preference for vertical forms. As a result, Japonisme became a cultural phenomenon and, through its influence on Art Nouveau, played a key role in the break with past styles. The flat composition of Japanese woodcuts, with its two dimensions and clearly drawn lines, was a major source of inspiration for European artists.

A new artistic term took root in France around 1900: l’art du feu, meaning the art of fire. The term had a qualitative sense but also referred to the production process of baking clay.

A significant proportion of Norwegian ceramic artists in the early 20th century embraced Art Nouveau. There was renewed interest in the craft among Norwegian artists, many of whom worked as designers for porcelain factories such as Porsgrund Porselænsfabrik and Egersund Fayancefabrik. Simple forms and colourful, often flowing glazes are typical features of Art Nouveau ceramics.

Norwegian ceramic artists were influenced in particular by Japanese pieces with their organic, flowing forms and use of materials and colour. Jugendstilsenteret has a wide selection of such works, some of which are Norwegian, ranging from the delicate to the grotesque.

Gerhard Munthe began designing for Porsgrund Porselænsfabrik in 1891. He wished to help forge a distinctive Norwegian aesthetic and believed there was great sales potential for Norwegian-designed underglaze porcelain. Hepatica was one of Munthe’s favourite motifs and can be seen as symbolizing the springtime of applied art in Norway. As well as being recognized as a national motif, it clearly alludes to Japanese art. The zigzags around the edges have been interpreted as an abstract depiction of icicles, but in Japanese art this shape symbolizes clouds, which would cause the hepatica to bloom. There were high hopes for the pattern when it entered production in 1893, but it was not a great commercial success, and production ceased in 1907.

On the other hand, it literally pained me to see, everywhere I went, the flood of dead, cold, impersonal mass-manufactured products that, at a low cost, deluded their owners into thinking they were works of art. 

In the late 19th century, the state of the furniture industry provoked a reaction. Many people believed that imitation, mass production and cheap materials had become the industry’s hallmarks and wished to see a return to genuine materials and solid construction. A number of critics and artists, including Valentin Kielland, believed that mediocrity had taken over the industry, and that the products showed no sign of creative tension or an artistic feel for the material.

Furniture making rose to prominence during the Art Nouveau period. Architects designed properly scaled pieces intended to complement a building’s architecture, with the interior and exterior combining to form an organic whole.

Clear lines were the defining characteristic of Art Nouveau furniture. Unbroken, curving lines symbolizing the growing force of nature were dominant, but austere, straight lines built around geometric forms were also widely used. Many variants of both styles can be found in Norwegian art furniture, often combined with elements of the medieval-inspired dragon style.

I wanted to revive and renew traditional Norwegian weaving and make it available to the world both as a decorative art and as a source of employment. Thus began my life’s work, which has occupied my mind, my creativity and my life.

Frida Hansen (1855–1931) was born into a Stavanger merchant family. In her youth, her ambition was to become an artist. She took a few drawing classes with Kitty Kielland and Johan Bennetter, but when she married at the age of 18, her artistic ambitions were put on hold. When an economic crash hit Stavanger in 1882, wiping out the family business and fortune, she had the opportunity to take up art again. She opened an embroidery shop and subsequently began exploring old Norwegian weaving traditions, which she developed and renewed.

Hansen was active chiefly from the 1890s through to 1914 – the Art Nouveau period. Her European breakthrough came when she exhibited at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, garnering glowing reviews and some important sales. Major museums of applied art from several European countries purchased tapestries and transparent hangings. Hansen developed the transparent technique by deliberately leaving out some of the warp threads in the weave, creating a transparent effect as light penetrated the open areas.

Frida Hansen is seen as having renewed Norwegian tapestry and brought a European approach to Norwegian textile art. The motifs for several of her tapestries, such as Dance of the Dragonflies (1901), Rose Garden (1904) and Milky Way (1898), are closely associated with the Art Nouveau movement. She played a key role in furthering Norwegian arts and crafts, even founding her own tapestry business (Det norske Billedvæveri).

In general, Hansen wove only her own designs, and she produced only one example of each tapestry. Portières, wall hangings and rugs could be ordered from a book of patterns. Altogether she produced 31 tapestries and about 165 patterns for transparent portières, wall hangings and rugs.

Gerhard Munthe (1849–1929) was born in Elverum and showed an early interest in drawing. He began studying art in 1870, and after completing his studies and spending time abroad, he settled in Sandvika in 1886, where he became a member of the “Lysaker Circle”, a group of artists and intellectuals. In the early part of his career, he painted mainly landscapes. In 1890 he began creating decorative art, and over the years that followed he became a driving force in developing a distinctly Norwegian style of decorative art, reflecting the country’s nature, myths and legends. He drew inspiration from many sources, including Japanese art, medieval Norway and the new decorative art movement in Europe. Munthe’s desire to reinvigorate the applied arts in Norway was inspired by the ideas of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.

Munthe’s breakthrough in decorative art came with the Black-White exhibition of drawings and graphics in Kristiania in 1893, where he exhibited 11 watercolours including Hel-Horse and Daughters of the Northern Lights. Reactions to the works were mixed. The public was bemused by Munthe’s anti-naturalism: the frequently asymmetrical composition and the lack of perspective and detail. Strong colours, bold outlines and stylized motifs, often repeated in rhythmic fashion, were the hallmarks of Munthe’s works. Later, the watercolour images were made into tapestries by Munthe’s wife Sigrun and, from 1894 onward, by the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum weaving studio.

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