Sigurd Winge

He began making art while still young, and early works from the late 1920s show a clear debt to Edvard Munch, the brooding psychological weight, the use of line as emotional carrier, the confrontation with inner states rather than outward appearances. From 1929 to 1932 he studied at the State Academy of Art in Oslo under Axel Revold, a formative teacher who shaped a generation of Norwegian modernists. During these years Winge formed a close friendship with fellow student Gert Jynge; the two became advocates of a German-oriented strand within Norwegian painting at a time when French influence dominated most of the field.

The 1930s saw Winge move steadily away from conventional painting toward a more experimental approach to materials. He began constructing works using copper, porcelain, fragments of colored glass, mirrors, and slate, embedding these into surfaces to create objects that occupied a space between painting, sculpture, and craft. This material practice was not mere novelty: it grew out of a sustained engagement with the expressive potential of physical substance itself, and the results were recognized as among the most significant contributions to Norwegian modernism of the period.

The German occupation of Norway during World War II gave Winge's work a darker urgency. His 1942 painting Terror and the 1944/45 work Kvinnehode (Flyalarm), a woman's head with an air raid warning, are among the most direct responses to the violence and fear of occupation in Norwegian wartime art. The mermaid works from 1941, for which he is now perhaps best known at auction, use mythological imagery in a way that feels ambiguous: poised between beauty and dread, the archaic motif loaded with something unresolved.

From 1942 onward, Winge developed a sustained practice in printmaking alongside his work in other media. He favored etching over the color woodcut then enjoying a revival in Norway, working primarily in black and white, initially pure drypoint, later combining it with surface etching. The graphic works demonstrate the same interest in texture and surface tension that characterized his material paintings, translated into the precise pressure of a metal plate.

His later career brought institutional recognition: he was appointed professor at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts in 1969, a position he held until his death. He died on 22 January 1970 in Trondheim. He was the father of theater director Stein Winge.

At auction, Winge's market is concentrated almost entirely at Grev Wedels Plass Auksjoner in Oslo, which has handled 65 of his 66 recorded lots. Prices for his most sought-after works reach significant levels: the 1941 Mermaid achieved 84,000 NOK, a second Havfrue from the same year sold for 62,000 NOK, and The Clown from 1969 brought 50,000 NOK. This concentration at a single house reflects both the depth of Norwegian institutional knowledge around his work and the primarily domestic character of his collector base.