ArtistNorwegian
Per Gjemre
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Per Martinius Gjemre was born on 26 November 1864 in Stavanger, in the Rogaland region of southwestern Norway, and he died in the same city on 10 April 1928. His entire life was bound to Stavanger, which gave him both his subjects and his cultural context, and he became one of the more constant presences in the city's art life during the years around the turn of the twentieth century.
Gjemre's early work shows the influence of Sigurd Moe, the drawing teacher and painter who was a central figure in Stavanger's artistic circle during the 1890s and who was himself linked to the plein-air tradition through his connections with Eilif Peterssen. Like Moe, Gjemre gravitated toward the flat, open landscape of Jæren - the coastal plain south of Stavanger where the light runs uninterrupted across sand dunes, peat fields and a sky that fills most of the canvas. This was a landscape painted by a loosely affiliated group often called the Jæren painters, and Gjemre's coastal and rural scenes from the region belong to that tradition.
His range was not confined to Jæren. The auction record shows works from Lofoten (1904), from Stavanger harbour, from Espedalen in the Gudbrandsdalen valley, and from Skudeneshavn on the island of Karmøy. Gjemre clearly traveled to paint, and his documentation of these different Norwegian landscapes - the dramatic northern coastlines alongside the gentler southwestern plains - gives his output a geographic breadth uncommon among Stavanger painters of his generation.
In addition to landscapes, he worked in urban motifs depicting Stavanger around 1914 and 1920, which carry documentary value today. He also produced still lifes and interiors, some showing an awareness of the arabesque-inflected decorative approach associated with the early Matisse circle, reflecting the reach of French modernism into Norwegian provincial art life in the 1910s.
All 18 works attributed to Gjemre in the Auctionist database come from a single source: Grev Wedels Plass Auksjoner in Oslo, one of the Norwegian houses specializing in 19th and 20th century Norwegian art. Realized prices range from around 15,000 NOK for "Parti fra Lofoten 1904" to 31,000 NOK for "From Jæren", with works from Stavanger harbour and Espedalen in the 18,000-27,000 NOK range. These figures place him solidly in the mid-tier of Norwegian period painters, with buyers showing particular interest in his Jæren and coastal subjects.