Queen Sonja of Norway is exhibiting selections from her large personal collection of contemporary Norwegian landscape paintings at Scandinavia House on lower Park Avenue as part of the centennial celebration of Norway's nationhood.
There are 19 photographs of the rugged Storfjorden landscape of western Norway taken by Queen Sonja displayed alongside 21 watercolors of this nearly inaccessible region by Ørnulf Opdahl.
The queen has been visiting the Storfjorden area, a land of snow-covered peaks, glaciers, steep gorges and spectacular fjords, for 20 years. Her photographs have a painterly quality and amazing distance clarity that is quite beautiful, especially the majestic scenic views titled "Towards Taffjord," "Mountain Lake in Summer" and "The Reindal Glacier."
Most of the photographs on view together with Opdahl's watercolors were published in 2002 in a book titled "Resonance." Seen together, the works do seem to strike up a dialogue that is almost musical in its sympathetic vibrations. The watercolors are stunning impressions of vertiginous mountain landscapes and waterfalls that are more ethereal than realistic.
Queen Sonja was persuaded to place some of her collection on public view for the first time when she and King Harald moved from their rural home to the royal palace in Oslo in 2001. She is one of the few private women collectors in the Scandinavian countries, and her collection is a growing one to which she adds from time to time as new artists emerge in Norway.
The queen curated the current exhibition with the assistance of Karin Hellandsjo, director of the Henie-Onstad Art Center in Blommenholm near Oslo. The center was established by Sonja Henie, the Norwegian figure-skating champion who starred in a series of Hollywood movies in the 1930s and 1940s, and her shipping tycoon husband, Niels Onstad.
When: Through Friday, August 26, 2005
Where: Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, NYC
Info: (212) 879-9779