KunstenaarNorwegian
Myrdam, Leif Heiberg
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Leif Heiberg Myrdam grew up in Asker outside Oslo and came to ceramics through formal training at Statens håndverks- og kunstindustriskole in Oslo, where he studied on the ceramics line under Jens von der Lippe from 1960 to 1965. What followed was a five-year apprenticeship with Erik Pløen - one of Norway's most significant postwar ceramicists - that gave Myrdam deep technical fluency with gas kiln firing and the controlled unpredictability of layered glaze work.
In 1970 he opened his own studio and held his first solo exhibition, entering the Norwegian craft scene as a ceramicist with a distinct visual position. Where Norwegian stoneware at the time typically drew on earthy ochres and grays, Myrdam arrived with strong blues, blue-greens, and rust-orange. By applying multiple coats of colored glaze in sequence - including a yellow glaze containing iron oxide and a signature blue glaze evoking the texture of rabbit fur - he built surfaces with unusual depth, a kind of speckled luminosity that resembled moss on wet stone.
His forms are as deliberate as his surfaces. Vases with asymmetric openings, sculptural bowls, and lamp bases with structural weight are recurring formats. These are objects that work both as functional forms and as three-dimensional studies in how glaze behaves under heat. In 1970 he received a gold medal in Florence, an early international recognition of this approach.
Myrdam's work entered public collections at home and abroad. The Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo holds several of his pieces, including a blue sculptural vase (Blå skulpturvase) from 1974-80 and a stoneware vase from 1975, both part of the former Kunstindustrimuseet design collection. His career has continued well into the twenty-first century: in 2019 Galleri Arctandria in Oslo staged a full retrospective, and in 2022 RAM gallery followed with an exhibition showing both historical and new work.
On the Nordic auction market, Myrdam's work appears almost exclusively through Blomqvist in Oslo, which accounts for all 21 items recorded on Auctionist. The works offered span ceramics - vases, bowls, and lamps - with top realized prices in the range of 4,000 to 6,500 NOK. These are pieces that attract collectors of Nordic applied art, particularly those drawn to the postwar Scandinavian studio ceramics tradition he helped reshape.