Odd Nerdrum

Odd Nerdrum
Nerdrum at Gallen-Kallela Museum, Finland in 2020
Born (1944-04-08) 8 April 1944 (age 80)
Helsingborg, Sweden
NationalitySwedish-Norwegian
EducationJoseph Beuys
Known forPainting
MovementKitsch movement

Odd Nerdrum (born 8 April 1944) is a Norwegian figurative painter who was born in Sweden;[1] his work is held by museums worldwide. Themes and style in Nerdrum's work reference anecdote and narrative. Primary influences by the painters Rembrandt and Caravaggio help place his work in direct conflict with the abstraction and conceptual art considered acceptable in much of Norway. Nerdrum creates six to eight paintings a year. They include still life paintings of small, everyday objects (like bricks), portraits and self-portraits, and large paintings allegorical and apocalyptic in nature. The figures in Nerdrum's paintings are often dressed as if from another time and place.[2]

Nerdrum was born in Sweden. His Norwegian parents were resistance fighters who had fled German-occupied Norway to Helsingborg, Sweden during World War II where Nerdrum, subsequently, was born. At the end of the war Nerdrum returned to Norway with his parents. By 1950 Nerdrum's parents had divorced leaving the mother to raise Odd and his younger brother. In 1993, Nerdrum discovered that his father was not his biological father; his mother had had a relationship with the architect David Sandved. Nerdrum was born from this liaison.

Nerdrum was educated in a Rudolf Steiner school and later at the Art Academy of Oslo. Disillusioned with the art form taught at the academy and with modern art in general Nerdrum began to teach himself to paint in a post-modern style with Rembrandt and Caravaggio as influences. In 1965, he began a several-months study with the German artist Joseph Beuys. Nerdrum says that his art should be understood as kitsch rather than art as such. On Kitsch, a manifesto composed by Nerdrum, describes the distinction he makes between kitsch and art.[3] Nerdrum's philosophy spawned the Kitsch movement among his students and followers, who call themselves kitsch painters rather than artists.

  1. ^ Brock, Chris (12 March 2020). "'Odd' squad: Black River native apprentices to a master painter". NNY 360. Watertown Daily Times and Northern New York Newspapers. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  2. ^ Hamilton, Martina. "About Odd Nerdrum". Retrieved 16 April 2012.
  3. ^ Pettinger, E.J. (29 December 2004). "The Kitsch Campaign". Boise Weekly. Archived from the original on 7 April 2012. Retrieved 30 December 2012.