My favorite Norwegian painter

A tour of his gallery

Every time I visit my hometown in Norway, I go on a little excursion to Sigstadskogen. My destination is a small cluster of houses in a forest clearing, ten minutes’ walk from my mother’s home. One of the buildings that greets you is this:

Lifting your gaze after crouching through the short door, you see

And then, as you turn around, you find

The cluster of houses you’ve arrived at is a gallery, a home, a studio, and an integrated art project. Living there is Einar Sigstad, who is a painter, artist, and family friend. He is also the father of one of my best friends, so if I told you that he is the most interesting living Norwegian painter, you should accuse me of bias. But Einar, now 74 years old, has a long distinguished career behind him, and you don’t need to take my word for it. I could tell you about some of his accolades, like how he has been featured at Høstutstillingen many times (and how he won an award there for favorite painting of the public). However, words should not be our currency here. Instead, we should look at some of his remarkable work.

As it happens, I went by his gallery a couple of days ago. There I ran into Einar just as he came home from cross-country skiing with his grandkids (Einar is active, he once biked from the northern tip of Norway to Turkey). They invited me for some hot chocolate, and afterwards I had the chance to ask if I could put up photos from his gallery. He kindly accepted.

So let’s have a look at some of his pieces. I am not going to provide any kind of critique or interpretation. The pieces are very capable of speaking for themselves. Also, for me, Einar’s paintings are drenched in mystery. I think that mystery is best served without comment. That said, I will add a snippet of context here and there.

Note that several of these photos are suboptimal, and that is 100% on me. If you’d like to see high quality renditions, you can acquire one of his many wonderful books or add a gallery with his works to your itinerary if you plan to visit Norway.

A sample of Einar’s work

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This one is called Vegkant-alter. My unofficial translation: Roadside altar

Each of these flowers is a distinct Norwegian wildflower.

This guide names all the flowers in the painting.

A close up:

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This is a painting:

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One of Einar’s self portraits:

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Einar brought me to see a recent creation—what he referred to as the newspaper room. Here he is in the room

Now, look at that wall behind him. That is not paint. That is thousands of pieces of newspaper he has cut out and glued on the wall. The whole room looks like this:

Here is a panorama shot capturing more of it:

I asked Einar how long it took, and he said 5 months. It sounded like there were lots of 12-hour days.

Come to think of it, I think I jumped on a trampoline in this room several times in my childhood. I did a lot of trampoline jumping in Sigstadskogen. A treasured memory is that time during winter when a trampoline was inside Einar’s studio, letting me and my friend jump right in front of a massive wall-covering painting of mysterious forest people standing watch in a pine forest. As for why all the trampolines: in Einar’s household there was no TV. As compensation, the four kids got two big trampolines. Respect. But, ahem, I am getting distracted here.

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The man is my dad.

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This is the only wood print I have included here, but he has made so many incredible wood prints.

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A relevant one for the times, I guess.

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