Printmaking was integral to Astrup’s artistic practice, to which he took a painterly approach, consciously blurring the boundaries between prints and paintings by adding texture and colour with a brush, sometimes all but overpainting his prints. He constantly strove to recapture his intensely-felt experiences of specific combinations of light, shadow and colour at given moments in the ever-changing climate of Jølster as seen in the many-colored masterpiece A Night in June in the Garden (1909), a print which exists in a variety of impressions, two of which will be on display. This section will also look closely at Astrup's largest and most ambitious print Foxgloves which, displayed alongside the original oil painting of 1909 will reveal his creative process.
Sandalstrand, the remarkable farm-garden and family home created by Astrup and his wife, Engel looks across the lake to the village of Ålhus. Together they transformed a barely habitable place into a richly planted oasis that came to embody Astrup's personal vision of what a farm garden in Jølster could be. The result proved to be not only the most distinctive and important artist's garden in Norway, but also a significant example of a garden used as an integral part of its artist-maker’s creative practice. It provided him with many artistic motifs which became the subjects of his paintings and prints such as Rhubarb (1911) and Spring in Jølster (1925). Fruits and flowers from the garden were also used to decorate the interior of the farm and to create his interior still lifes; examples on display include Interior Still Life: Living Room at Sandalstrand (c.1921).
The childhood sense of the landscape as a magical place of potential transformation emerges in many of Astrup’s works. In Grain Poles he evokes an army of trolls in painting the characteristic grain poles of rural Norway, making the likeness explicit with the suggestion of a face. Similar motifs appear elsewhere in his work, most obviously in the 'troll' tree and Ice Queen mountain of Spring Night and Willow (1917). The final room in the exhibition also brings to London the most striking of all Norway's festivals, Midsummer Eve, which Astrup painted with great intensity. His memories of watching the festivities as a child informed works such as Midsummer Eve Bonfire (1915) where couples whirl, dancing to the music of a fiddler. Blended with the great wafts of smoke and luminous flames, Astrup's dazzling prints and paintings of the celebrations were to become arguably his most famous works.
Nikolai Astrup was born in 1880, in Kalvåg in Bremanger, Nordfjord. He was the eldest child to his pastor father, Christian Astrup and his mother Petra Constance. The family moved to a parsonage in the village of Ålhus, Jølster in 1883. In 1899 Astrup began as a student at the Royal School of Drawing in Kristiania, producing nude drawings and portrait studies, also in oil.
In 1901, Astrup exhibited his first piece of artwork in Kristiania Art Association’s Spring Exhibition; Autumn Rain in a Mountain Village, 1900. Astrup concluded his studies at Harriet Backer's school in 1901, and was awarded the Schou travel stipend in November. He made his way to various art collections in Europe, before becoming a student of Christian Krohg at the Académie Colarossi in Paris. By 1902, Astrup had returned to Jølster for good, living at the Parsonage more or less permanently between 1902- 1913. A recommendation from Christian Krohg stated "I believe that he will be the one who will most successfully elevate the position of Norwegian art both at home and abroad." His first solo exhibition was presented at Blomqvist Kunsthandel in Kristiania in April, 1905 and received effusive reviews.
In 1907, on the 23rd December, Astrup married Engel Sunde. Shortly afterwards, in January 1908, Astrup travelled to London on a stipend from the Henrichsen Foundation and when he returned in May, he presented his second solo exhibition at Bergen Art Association. 1911 saw Astrup’s third and last solo exhibition, displayed at the Artists' Association,Kristiania. In the same year, Astrup's first child was born, a daughter named Kari. In the same year the family moved to a newly constructed house in Myklebust, before relocating to Sandalstrand in 1913. The subsequent years saw fewer trips — one to Copenhagen and Stockholm in 1916, another to Algeria in 1922 — as Astrup's health deteriorated. Astrup died of pneumonia on 21 January 1928, at the age of 47, after complications with his lungs from a lifetime battle with asthma and tuberculosis.
With Scala Arts and Heritage Publishing, Dulwich is producing a fully illustrated colour catalogue to accompany the exhibition. Exhibition co-curators Ian A C Dejardin, MaryAnne Stevens and Frances Carey explore the artist’s remarkable life including his place within the context of contemporary European art and the innovative quality of his printmaking. Also take in the Dulwich Shop for exhibition-themed products such as those that accompany the Astrup exhibit
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