ArtistNorwegianb.1842–d.1917
Johannes Grimelund
0 active items
Johannes Martin Grimelund was born in Christiania (present-day Oslo) on 15 March 1842, into a family of standing - his father Andreas Grimelund served as archbishop of Trondheim. This background gave him access to a broader education than many of his contemporaries, and his artistic training took him across several of Europe's leading centres before he eventually made Paris his permanent home. He studied in Kristiania, Düsseldorf, and Karlsruhe, where he worked under Hans Gude from 1869 to 1879, before settling in Paris around 1875.
Gude's influence left a clear mark. Grimelund absorbed the Düsseldorf School's command of dramatic natural light and atmospheric composition, but over time he moved toward a more open, impressionistic handling of colour and surface. Paris reinforced this direction: living and working in France through the final decades of the 19th century and into the 20th, he was exposed to currents in French painting that loosened his technique without fully dissolving his training in the Northern European landscape tradition.
His strongest work focuses on the Norwegian coast, and the Lofoten archipelago in particular. Paintings such as "Maisons de pêcheurs à Svolvoer, Lofoden" (1892) show his ability to hold together the raw verticality of the Lofoten peaks and the quieter horizontals of harbour life. The fishing village at Svolvær appears in multiple works across different years, suggesting it held a special place in his visual imagination even as he lived far from it. He also painted harbour scenes in Antwerp, Le Havre, and other European ports, as well as landscapes from Geiranger and other Norwegian fjords.
Grimelund's work was acquired by French institutions during his lifetime, a mark of real recognition for a foreign painter working in Paris. The Musée d'Orsay holds at least one of his paintings, and works are also held at the Château-Musée in Nemours and the Musée Crozatier in Le Puy-en-Velay. The Norwegian National Museum in Oslo also holds a work. He died in Garches, just outside Paris, on 25 October 1917, having spent more than four decades in France.
At auction, Grimelund appears regularly through Grev Wedels Plass Auksjoner, which accounts for 23 of the 25 items in the Auctionist database, with Nyborgs Auksjoner handling two. His prices sit in a consistent range: the top result is "Fiskeboder Svolvær i Lofoten" (1893) at 40,000 NOK, matched by "Havneparti" (1885) at the same level. Further sales include "Fiskevær i Lofoten" (1906) at 30,000 NOK and works from Geiranger and Le Havre harbour at 25,000 and 23,000 NOK respectively. The pattern points to steady collector interest in his coastal and fjord subjects rather than exceptional headline prices.