ArtistNorwegian
Per Rom
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Per Rom was born on 22 November 1903 in Kristiania - the city that would become Oslo - and spent his working life at the intersection of painting and institutional art life in Norway. He studied at the Statens Håndverks- og Kunstindustriskole in Kristiania, later becoming a student of Axel Revold between 1924 and 1925. Revold, one of the most influential Norwegian painters of the early twentieth century and a pupil of Henri Matisse, left a visible mark on Rom's early work: a tendency toward flat, strongly simplified forms and a deliberate restraint in colour.
Rom belonged to the oldest generation of Revold students and participated in collective exhibitions with several of them before making his solo debut at Kunstnerforbundet in 1932. His paintings from this period focus primarily on landscapes, rendered in a pared-down style that owes something to French post-impressionism without abandoning a distinctly Nordic sense of place. Works such as "Brann i Steen og Strøm" (1931) and "Aften i blindleia" (1951), both in the National Museum in Oslo, show this tendency clearly: solid forms, spare composition, and a quiet attention to light.
Around 1960, Rom's work shifted decisively toward abstraction. These later compositions, of which the National Museum holds six, mark a natural continuation of the simplifying impulse that had always been present in his painting. The move was gradual rather than abrupt, reflecting a career that had consistently privileged structural clarity over surface incident.
Outside the studio, Rom's contribution to Norwegian art life was considerable. He directed Galleri Per in Oslo from 1940 to 1953, one of the key commercial and cultural spaces of the Oslo art scene during and after the war years. He edited the journal Kunsten idag from 1946 to 1973, a publication that shaped how Norwegian modernism was discussed and disseminated. From 1953 to 1973, he served as director of Riksgalleriet, the institution responsible for bringing contemporary art to audiences across Norway. He died on 2 October 1985 in Oslo.
At auction, Rom's work appears almost exclusively through Grev Wedels Plass Auksjoner, Oslo's specialist house for classical Norwegian art. The database shows 14 items sold there, with top results including "Sunbathers 1928" at 105,000 NOK and figurative compositions such as "Kvinne og mann med hest og sau 1943" at 17,000 NOK. These prices reflect the position of a historically significant but not commercially prominent mid-century Norwegian painter whose institutional legacy arguably outweighs his market profile.