ArtistNorwegian
Finn Christensen
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Finn Christensen was born on 26 February 1920 in Kristiania - the city now known as Oslo - to Nils Christensen and Ellen Andrea Henriksen. He grew up near Bislett with little exposure to contemporary art in his early years. During the German occupation in World War II he worked practically, assisting sculptors and carvers, including an apprenticeship with Nils Flakstad and work on casts for Anne Grimdalen's monumental sculpture projects. He also attended Doro Ording's painting school in 1942. In the autumn of 1945 he entered the first post-war class at Statens Kunstakademi, where he studied under Jean Heiberg, Per Krohg, and Aage Storstein until 1948.
Christensen's early work in the late 1940s and early 1950s moved through naturalistic depiction and surrealist-inflected imagery before arriving at the geometric abstraction that would define his mature practice. A crucial turning point came with his time at S. W. Hayter's Atelier 17 in Paris, the influential printmaking studio that had shaped the work of artists including Picasso, Miro, and Jackson Pollock. Hayter's rigorous approach to intaglio technique left a permanent mark on Christensen's graphic output, and his major exhibition of prints at Kåre Berntsen Gallery in Oslo in 1961 signalled his breakthrough to a wider Norwegian public.
In 1956, Christensen was among the founding members of the Terningen group, formed alongside painters Inger Sitter, Gunnar S. Gundersen, and others. The group's inaugural exhibition at Galleri KB in Oslo that year provoked substantial public debate and helped establish non-figurative art as a serious and legitimate mode of expression within Norwegian modernism. Terningen operated in a cultural climate still largely dominated by figurative traditions, and the group's advocacy for abstraction had lasting consequences for how Norwegian art institutions and collectors engaged with international modernist currents.
From the 1960s and 1970s onward, Christensen's painting and sculpture developed a formal language that combined geometric and organic forms, often working across relief, ceramics, glass, and metal. His public commissions placed him in direct contact with civic and institutional life: he produced decorative works for Rikshospitalet (1964), Ullevaal and Aker hospitals (1969), Lambertseter church (1967), Aassiden church in Drammen (1968), and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). His relief 'Relieff' (1971-72) is held by the National Gallery of Norway, which also holds nine of his drawings. Works entered the collections of Riksgalleriet, Gothenburg Museum of Art, Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He served on the Arts Council Norway from 1985 to 1988. He married painter Lise Nicolaisen, who died the same year as him; both died in 2009.
At auction on Auctionist, Christensen is represented by 12 recorded lots, almost all handled through Grev Wedels Plass Auksjoner in Oslo and Nyborgs Auksjoner. His works encompass paintings and at least one sculpture. The top recorded sale is 'Komposisjon' at 15,000 NOK, followed by 'Konstantinbuen i Roma' at 11,000 NOK and a second 'Komposisjon' at 6,000 NOK. These figures are modest relative to his museum footprint, suggesting that his work remains better known to institutional collectors than to the broader secondary market.