Odd Nerdrum, 1944 | Postmodern artist

Od Nerdrum is a Swedish-born, Norwegian figurative painter whose 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 his native 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 subjects of Nerdrum's paintings are often dressed as if from another time and place.

Rembrandt and Caravaggio were primary influences on Nerdrum's work, while secondary influences include Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian and the less obvious influences, according to Vine and either mentioned by Nerdrum himself or other critics, that include Brueghel, Goya, Chardin, Millet, as well the even less apparent Henry Fuseli, Caspar David Friedrich, Ferdinand Hodler, Edvard Munch, Käthe Kollwitz, Salvador Dalí, Chaim Soutine and Lars Hertervig.

Nerdrum was born in Sweden to resistance fighters who had fled German occupied Norway during World War II. 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 Nerdrum and his younger brother. In 1993, Nerdrum discovered his father was not his biological father; his mother had had a relationship with the architect David Sanfed. Nerdrum was born from this liaison.

Nerdrum was educated in a Rudolph 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 uses heavy layers of paint to create chiaroscuro effects reminiscent of Caravaggio and Rembrandt, and he also continually recalls the achievement of the great Italian and Dutch painters in his ability to capture the texture of things on canvas -- from shiny metals to rich fabrics. Above all, he knows how to convey every shade of human flesh.

And yet the subject matter of Nerdrum's works is usually enough to place him in the modern world. His dark palette seems to underwrite a disturbing vision of the end of civilization as we know it. For those who have not seen Nerdrum's paintings, I try to describe them this way: imagine the result if Rembrandt had painted the sets of The Road Warrior.

Nerdrum creates six to eight paintings per year.

These include Still life paintings of small everyday objects like bricks, portraits and self portraits whose subjects are dressed as if from some other time and place, and large paintings, allegorical in nature that present a sense of the apocalyptic and again reference another time.

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.

Nerdrum's philosophy has spawned The Kitsch Movement among his students and followers, who call themselves kitsch painters as opposed to artists.

Odd Nerdrum, nato l'8 aprile 1944, è un pittore figurativo Norvegese, il cui lavoro è tenuto da musei di tutto il mondo.

Nerdrum nacque in Svezia da combattenti della resistenza che erano fuggiti dalla Norvegia occupata dai tedeschi durante la seconda guerra mondiale. Alla fine della guerra, Nerdrum tornò in Norvegia con i suoi genitori.

Nel 1950 i genitori di Nerdrum avevano divorziato lasciando la madre a crescere Nerdrum ed il suo fratello minore. Nel 1993, Nerdrum scoprì che suo padre non era il padre biologico; sua madre aveva avuto una relazione con l'architetto David Sanfed. Nerdrum è nato da questa relazione.

Studia presso alla Art Academy di Oslo ove non termina gli studi a causa del suo rifiuto nell’aderire allo spirito modernista che dominava durante quel periodo all’interno dell’ambiente accademico.

Rifacendosi a Rembrandt ed a Caravaggio, studiò successivamente da autodidatta i grandi maestri del passato.

Nella sua produzione intendo distinguere almeno due periodi: il primo, collocabile nei decenni ’60 e ’70, caratterizzato da una componente figurativa maggiormente realistica, che trasfigura poi in una seconda fase, a partire dagli anni ’80 (qui proposta), in una sorta di pittura evocante una certa tensione fantastica.

Le ambientazioni di questi quadri rappresentano lande vuote, paesaggi lunari, radure di un universo interiore nelle quali si giocano le vicende di psichismi inconsci e avventure archetipiche che esprimono con pervicacia il valore mitopoietico delle immagini. Sicuramente annoverabile tra i maestri di arte fantastica.

Nerdrum dice che la sua arte dovrebbe essere intesa come kitsch piuttosto che arte in quanto tale. Su Kitsch, un manifesto composto da Nerdrum, descrive la distinzione che fa tra kitsch e arte. La filosofia di Nerdrum ha generato il Movimento Kitsch tra i suoi studenti e seguaci, che si definiscono pittori kitsch piuttosto che artisti.