ArtistNorwegian
Theodor Kittelsen
0 active items
If you have ever pictured a troll in a Nordic forest, chances are you are seeing Theodor Kittelsen's version. His illustrations for the Norwegian folk tales collected by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe created the definitive visual vocabulary for an entire mythology: trolls with enormous noses and cow tails lurking among pine trees, the water spirit Noekken rising from dark lakes, the plague figure Pesta climbing staircases. These images have saturated Norwegian visual culture so thoroughly that separating Kittelsen's inventions from the folk tradition itself has become nearly impossible.
Born on 27 April 1857 in the coastal town of Krageroe in Telemark, Kittelsen showed artistic talent early. He studied in Oslo and Munich, returning to Norway to work as an illustrator at a time when Norwegian cultural nationalism was intensifying. His commission to illustrate Asbjornsen and Moe's "Norske Folkeeventyr" (Norwegian Folk Tales) lasted twenty-nine years and produced hundreds of images. Characters like Smoerbuek, Askeladden, and Kvitebjorn Kong Valemon became inseparable from his depictions of them.
Kittelsen's trolls were his masterwork. Fat, ugly, ancient beings with oversized ears, noses, and feet, they inhabited a landscape that was unmistakably Norwegian: dark forests, mossy boulders, mountain streams. Not all were menacing; some were comical, some melancholy, some endearingly stupid. The book "Troll" collected his finest supernatural illustrations. His nature paintings, particularly of the forests and lakes around Lauvlia where he lived, share the same atmospheric sensitivity.
At auction, Kittelsen commands prices that place him among the most valuable Norwegian artists. Grev Wedels Plass Auksjoner handles virtually all of his 165 items on Auctionist. His market includes some extraordinary results: "White Bear King Valemon" (1912) sold for 36,000,000 NOK, and "Tirilil-Tove" reached 5,600,000 NOK. Even his drawings regularly trade in the hundreds of thousands of NOK, reflecting his central position in Norwegian art and cultural identity.