ArtistNorwegian
Inger Sitter
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The bare rock formations along the Norwegian coast at Tjome, scraped clean by glaciers and sea, found their way into Inger Sitter's paintings as surely as oil found canvas. Born in Trondheim in 1929, Sitter grew up partly aboard her father Ingvar's ships sailing European waters, partly in Antwerp with her mother. This cosmopolitan childhood gave her an early fluency with the wider art world that would prove decisive when, in the 1950s, she became one of the first Norwegian artists to commit fully to abstraction in a country deeply suspicious of it.
Her training was rigorous and international. After initial studies at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts under Per Krohg and Jean Heiberg (1945-46), she spent three years at the Institut Superieur des Beaux Arts in Antwerp, studied colour theory with Andre Lhote in Paris, and twice worked at Stanley William Hayter's legendary Atelier 17, where she absorbed the experimental printmaking techniques that would inform her graphic work for decades. In 1946, she co-founded the exhibition group Terningen (The Dice) with Carl Nesjar, Tore Haaland, and Odd Tandberg, a collective that became instrumental in legitimising non-figurative art in Norway.
Sitter's paintings of the 1960s pulse with bright, intuitive colour, lyrical abstractions that channel the energy of the School of Paris while remaining grounded in the physical world she observed from her Tjome studio. A brief collage period (1960-65) produced works of striking complexity, including "In the Picture" (1964), which the newspaper Morgenbladet named one of Norway's twelve most important works of art. By the 1970s her palette had sobered and her brushwork grown heavier, as geological forms, naked rock, and coastal erosion became increasingly central subjects. The paint itself seemed to take on the weight of stone.
Sitter held positions of institutional power unusual for a woman of her generation. She was the first female professor at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (1981-83), served on the board of Nasjonalgalleriet, and sat on the Arts Council Norway for four years. Her work is held by Nasjonalmuseet (over 36 works), Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.
She received the Prince Eugen Medal for painting in 1983, was named Knight First Class of the Order of St. Olav in 1998, and elevated to Commander in 2010. When she died in March 2015 at the age of 85, fellow artists spoke of losing a force of nature.
At auction, Sitter's work trades almost exclusively through Norwegian houses. Grev Wedels Plass Auksjoner handles the vast majority of the 155 items indexed on Auctionist, with paintings from her peak 1960s-70s period commanding the highest prices. "Lek" (1968) holds the auction record at NOK 380,000, closely followed by "Skinless" (1976) at NOK 370,000. Her prints and graphic works offer a more accessible entry point for collectors, regularly trading in the NOK 5,000-30,000 range.