Peder Balke & the Nordic Romantic Movement
Thursday 19 November 2020, 16.30 (GMT) R E G I S T E R
Dr. Knut Ljøgodt launches his book Peder Balke: Sublime North followed by a panel discussion.
In Association with the Royal Norwegian Embassy in London and the Nordic Institute of Art.
The Norwegian painter Peder Balke (1804-1887) is perhaps one of the most enigmatic artists of the Nordic Romantic movement. Dr Knut Ljøgodt will introduce his latest book on the artist - drawing from the paintings in The Gundersen Collection as well as works in museums and other collections, the book presents a comprehensive study of Peder Balke's art and his development as a painter. Although not acknowledged by the domestic art milieu of Norway, he still enjoyed the patronage of royal collectors such as Louis Philippe, King of the French.
This will be followed by a panel discussion with the National Gallery's curator Christopher Riopelle and some of the London Art Week dealers specialising in Nordic art. Balke will be placed in context of the artistic, intellectual and historical-political currents of Norway and Europe in the 19th century. Balke's relationship to contemporary artists such as his mentors Carl Johan Fahlcrantz and Johan Christian Dahl, as well as Caspar David Friedrich and J.M.W. Turner will also be covered.
Dr Knut Ljøgodt, Head of the Nordic Institute of Art
Dr Knut Ljøgodtis a Norwegian art historian and a recognized scholar on Nordic and European 19th and 20th century art. He has formerly been the director of Northern Norway Art Museum as well as a curator in the National Gallery of Norway. Dr Ljøgodt is today the head of the Nordic Institute of Art and is presently working on the catalogue raisonné of Peder Balke. In 2019 and 2020 he curated the exhibition Edward Burne-Jones: The Pre-Raphaelites and the North together with Alison Smith, which was shown at Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde (Stockholm) and KODE - Art Museums and Composer Homes (Bergen). In 2014-2015 he curated the exhibition Peder Balke: Vision and Revolution at Northern Norway Art Museum (Tromsø) and The National Gallery (London) together with Christopher Riopelle.
Christopher Riopelle, The Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings
Christopher Riopelle is the Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at the National Gallery, London. He previously held curatorial positions at the Getty Museum, L.A., and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Riopelle has curated or co-curated National Gallery exhibitions on Ingres, landscape sketches, Renoir, Picasso, Richard Hamilton, Paul Durand-Ruel, Delacroix, Ed Ruscha, and Thomas Cole. Riopelle has a particular interest in Nordic art and has curated or co-curated Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light (2010); Forests, Rocks, Torrents: Norwegian and Swiss Landscapes from the Lunde Collection (2011); and Peder Balke 1804-1887 (2014). In addition, he has overseen the acquisition at the National Gallery of paintings by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, L.A. Ring, J.C. Dahl, and Balke. He is an Associate Fellow of the Nordic Institute of Art.
Anthony Crichton-Stuart, Director, Agnews
Anthony obtained a BA in General Arts (earned with Honours) at Durham University. After leaving university he completed a one year Fine and Decorative Arts Diploma at Sotheby's Works of Art course in 1985. After two years at the Brod Gallery in London, he joined Christie's Old Master Paintings department in London and transferred to Christie's New York in 1991 as a senior specialist and became Head of Department in 1994. He was involved in many of Christie's most successful Old Master sales in New York, including the estate of Rudolf Nureyev, and lectures on various subjects. After leaving the auction world in 2007, he set up as an independent dealer and art advisor before joining the newly founded Thos. Agnew & Son's, the long-established international fine art dealers recently acquired by new owners, in 2013.
Marcus Marshall, Director, Daxer & Marschall
Marcus Marschall studied history of art in Munich and Bamberg. He started Daxer&Marschall in 1985.
From the late 1990s onwards one focus of the gallery was on 19th-century Scandinavian art with painters like J.C. Dahl, Peder Balke or C.W. Eckersberg, who at that time had only started to become internationally known.
Another focus was on plein-air oil studies which hitherto had only been appreciated by a rather small group of connoisseurs. The gallery pioneered these markets and set trends with scholarly catalogues and shows at the worlds leading art fairs. They helped shape private collections like the Asbjorn Lunde collection as well as museum collections like the Fondation Custodia in Paris and sold to major institutions and private collections. The gallery also engages in early 20th-century art and outstanding Old Master paintings.
William Mitchell, Director, John Mitchell Fine Paintings
William Mitchell is a director of John Mitchell Fine Paintings, a family-owned dealership associated with traditional British and European paintings for ninety years. With a gallery just off Brook Street in the heart of London's Mayfair, the business holds regular exhibitions and participates in a selection of art fairs. As well as a long-standing interest in Old Master pictures, William has become an acknowledged specialist in French, Swiss and German paintings of the Alps and in winter 2021, the gallery will put on its 20th annual exhibition devoted to Alpine art, Peaks & Glaciers. In 2018 William wrote and published a book about the French painter and mountaineer Gabriel Loppé (1825-1913) and is currently writing the first monograph in English on Alexandre Calame, the leading Swiss landscapist of the nineteenth century.