Nikolai Astrup

Born in Bremanger on August 30, 1880, the son of a parish priest, Astrup moved to Jolster at the age of three when his father took a posting at the Alhus parsonage. The valley would become his life's subject. Expected to follow his father into the church, he instead pursued art, studying under Harriet Backer in Oslo (1900-01), where she recognised him as "the true genius of the school". A scholarship took him to Paris, where he studied at the Academie Colarossi under Christian Krohg and at the Academie Julian. The art he encountered there, Matisse, Gauguin, Rousseau, confirmed his instinct for strong colour, but it was Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts, particularly those of Hiroshige, that offered a formal framework for his vision of the Norwegian landscape.

Astrup returned to Jolster and in 1912 purchased Sandalstrand farm, which he renamed Astruptunet. From this base he painted the valley through every season: wild bursts of spring blossom, luminous midsummer nights, cool autumn greys. His midsummer bonfire paintings are his most celebrated works, capturing the ancient St. Hans Eve tradition with a visual richness that borders on the hallucinatory. The fires, the water, the surrounding birch trees all glow with an inner light that is neither realistic nor entirely fantastical.

His woodcuts, developed through an entirely self-taught technique, rank among the most original in Norwegian art history. Working with alder wood blocks, oil-based inks, and multiple colour layers that took months to dry, Astrup deliberately blurred the boundary between print and painting, adding hand-painted details after printing and varying the palette between impressions so that no two are alike.

Astrup suffered from asthma throughout his life and died of pneumonia on January 21, 1928, at the age of 47, after an open-topped car journey in cold weather. His home at Astruptunet is now a museum. KODE in Bergen devotes an entire wing to his work, and a 2016 exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London introduced him to an international audience as "Norway's forgotten master of colour and folklore".

On the auction market, Astrup's paintings command the highest prices of any artist in this profile. Grev Wedels Plass Auksjoner handles virtually all 142 items indexed on Auctionist. "Midsummer Night Bonfire" holds the record at NOK 3,000,000, followed by "Growing Weather" at NOK 2,200,000 and "Bird on a Stone" at NOK 1,300,000. His prints and drawings, which constitute the majority of his auction presence (53 prints, 28 drawings), offer collectors access to his distinctive vision at more accessible price points.