Adelsteen Normann

Eilert Adelsteen Normann (1 May 1848 – 26 December 1918) was a Norwegian painter who worked in Berlin. He was a noted painter of landscapes of Norway. His paintings were nearly always landscapes and invariably of the fjords of Norway where he would show the water combined with small houses and boats and steep mountainsides. In the early 1890s, Normann was doing good business selling his paintings to hotel owners. After seeing the work of his countryman Edvard Munch when it was exhibited in Kristiania, Normann wrote to Munch asking if he would exhibit his work in Berlin. Munch was so overcome that he packed up his exhibition on 20 October 1892 and went to Berlin where Normann befriended him. Munch's work was placed in an exhibition which caused such a stir that the painters in Berlin split into two societies. (It was suspected that the underlying reason for Normann's invitation to Munch was to cause this split).

Normann exhibited in Oslo, His "dragon style" house was bought in 1891 and built (like many Norwegian houses) from a pre-fabricated kit from the city of Trondheim. The house stayed with his heirs until 1934.

Normann notably exhibited at the prestigious Salon de Paris from as early as 1882. His paintings earned a 'Mention Honorable' in 1884 and he was awarded a bronze medal in 1889.

He died in Kristiania (now: Oslo) on 26 December 1918, during the worldwide Spanish flu pandemic. His urn is placed in the Norwegian-style chapel of Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery near Berlin.

Legacy Normann's paintings are included in galleries in Bergen, Boston, Cincinnati, Cologne, Dresden, Leeds, Liverpool and Stockholm.

Selected paintings