Eva Langaas (1940 - 2016) was an artist with international appeal and whose graphics are characterized by sensual forms in lush color play. Langaas was originally trained as a textile artist, but many years of heavy physical work in the textile profession contributed to her starting to work with graphics and paintings. Her lithographs nevertheless bear traces of a textile artist.

Langaas had a charisma and an ability to create well-being around her, which is reflected in her colorful lithographs. The motifs and color surfaces provide room for reflection, and to go on a journey of discovery in space. Her nature pictures are dramatic and lie on the border between the abstract and figurative, often with elements of well-known symbols. Eva Langaas debuted at the autumn exhibition in Oslo in 1972 and had her first solo exhibition at the prestigious gallery in Helland Kungsträdgården in Stockholm a few years later. She has also had exhibitions in Rome, Geneva, Singapore, New York and Paris.

No information about the artist.

Frithjof Smith-Hald

Girl with a carriage and a pretzel. Frithjof Smith-Hald. 1887. Digitalt Museum Dag Andre Ivarsøy/National Museum. Reproduced with permission
S.-H. began to use both of his parents' surnames early on. He was to become a businessman, but soon decided on an artistic career and received his education at the Drawing School and JF Eckersberg's Painting School in Kristiania 1865 - 70. Christian Skredsvig has given an enjoyable portrayal of him during these years. Then followed studies in Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf 1871 - 78. A visit to Paris just after New Year's 1876 opened his eyes to the new French art, and S.-H. moved to Paris in 1878, where he readily adopted French salon realism with its gray-toned value painting and folk motifs. S.-H. often obtained these from Norway, and he preferred to paint beach and seascapes with staffage of fishermen and sailors. He often painted atmospheric pictures with moonlight and sunsets in summer and winter. He obtained other motifs from the French and English Channel coasts. These pictures became very popular, and in the early 1980s S.-H. represented Norwegian landscape art almost alone at the Paris Salon, where he participated annually. He received favorable criticism from French art critics and was purchased by a number of the country's museums, including some German and Dutch ones. Thus, the museum in Lille acquired Steamship Station in Norway (1880), The Hague Winter Evening by the Sea (1882), Reims Summer Night in Norway (1888), Rouen Garnrensning, Louvre, Paris The Old Fishing Net, La Rochelle Garnet, Bordeaux October Evening in Norway, Montpellier Home from Work. Other works came to Boulogne and Le Havre, to German collections, e.g. in Cologne (Home from Fishing, 1880) and Danzig and to the Agnew Gallery, London (Morning in Cornwall and Anxiety). S.-H. also sold to large private collections in Paris, London and the USA. In Norway, there are relatively few works by S.-H., a good deal was destroyed when his son's house in Bergen burned down.

No information about art.

Terje Grøstad was a Norwegian graphic artist from Seljord in Telemark. His father was a bookseller, and Terje Grøstad grew up in Drammen. The family settled in Oslo in 1945. That same year, Grøstad became a student at the Norwegian School of Crafts and Art and Design under Karl Høgberg.

The painter Nikolai Astrup worked from around 1900 to the late 1920s. He lived and worked in Jølster in Sogn og Fjordane, the village where he grew up, and his paintings and graphics are strongly influenced by nature and the rural environment. He developed a rich and personal art with a coloristic style, marked by a mystical and emphasized experience of nature. The painting of a midsummer bonfire from 1902–12 is among his best-known works. His home, Astruptunet south of Jølstervatnet, is now a museum.

He was a student of Harriet Backer 1899–1901 and the following year of Christian Krohg in Paris. Apart from brief trips to England, Spain and Algeria, Astrup lived from 1905 until his death on his farm in Jølster.

In intimate interaction with nature and the distinctive rural environment, Nikolai Astrup created a colorfully rich, strongly personal art, filled with a mystically emphasized, almost pantheistic experience of nature. A deep romantic tone characterizes many of his early works, such as Vårkveldsol (1902) and the various editions of Jonsokbål, from the years 1902–12.

This painting is a posthumous reproduction of a painting that can be found in the Rasmus Meyer collections, at Kode in Bergen. You can read more about the original in their digital catalog: Nikolai Astrup, Kollen, Oil on canvas, 1905 - 1906. Rasmus Meyer collections, Kode Art museums and composers' homes.

Astrup's art is particularly well represented in the Bergen Art Museum, where a very extensive collection of paintings, drawings and prints is on long-term deposit by the DNB Savings Bank Foundation. Astrup is also represented with a number of key works in the Rasmus Meyer Collections. Later, his art became lighter in tone, often lyrically dreamy as in the many spring evening paintings and lush green summer landscapes. They often have a certain naive feel, partly inspired by Henri Rousseau.

Astrup was a pioneer in his color woodcuts. They are available in many color variations, often retouched with a brush: Bird on Stone, Fox Bells, Soleinatt, Plognatten and Kvennagongsvatten. Astrup illustrated HE Kinck's Vestlandsnoveller (published 1942).

David Kindleberger (1834-1921)

American naval doctor and hobby painter who settled in Balestrand in the 20th century. David was born in Smithville, Oregon. After studying at Wittenberg College, he joined the USN in 1859 as a naval doctor. He had a long military career, and even after he retired he held several positions in the American Medical Service, including chief of the US Naval Hospital in Philadelphia and chief of the Naval Hospital in Guatemala (1914). There is little information given that Kindleberger was a painter, but for Balestrand he is best known as a painter. He naturally fell in with the other painters who built dragon-style villas here. He was not a great painter, but at his best he could create great works of e.g. Balestrand.

Tranås grew up in Førde, lived most of his life in Stryn, Nordfjord, and spent his last years in Lillehammer. He was a multifaceted talent, was considered a promising painter as a young man, and wrote three books in the years 1900-10. During his stay in Copenhagen, he gave a number of lectures in student societies and artists' associations. Tranås painted several dramatic figure compositions (Too Late, 1905, and Jernbyrden, before 1920), and a number of landscape motifs from Nord- and Sunnfjord, in which he alternated between a distinctive romantic mysticism and quiet and sensitively perceived nature studies.