Henrik Lund (painter)

Henrik Louis Lund (8 September 1879 – 23 December 1935) was a Norwegian painter and graphic artist.

Christian Sinding, Gunnar Heiberg og Knut Hamsun
(1926)

Nils Claus Ihlen
before 1925

Lund was born in Bergen as a son of Lt.-Col. Henrik Louis Bull Lund (1838–1891) and pianist and composer Birgitte Theodora Carlsen (1843–1913). His sister was composer Signe Lund. He spent much of his young days at sea and probably had a naval career in mind. However, he was not admitted to the Norwegian Naval Academy.[1]

He moved to Kristiania, where he met painting student Per Deberitz, who was a student of Hans Gude and who probably turned Lund's interest to this profession. He was a pupil of Harriet Backer (1899), debuted the same year, and studied further with Johan Nordhagen (1903). Lund had his first exhibit in 1899 and his first Autumn Exhibit in 1901. He lived in Paris (1905, 1920–21) and exhibited in Berlin (1908). He lived in Copenhagen from 1904 to 1909 and broke through here. He held several notable exhibitions, including "The Six" in Berlin and Copenhagen in 1911.

He belonged to a group of early-1900s young painters called the Neo-Impressionists. He befriended such painters as Ludvig Karsten, Søren Onsager, Bernhard Folkestad, Arne Kavli, Theodor Laureng and Anders Svarstad, and drew inspiration from Karsten, Edvard Munch and Christian Krohg. In the years before the First World War began, Lund was interested in pure landscapes, open and airy impressions of nature. He found motifs in the Oslo Fjord, Holmsbu and Nordland, but first and foremost at his summer place near Kragerø on Skåtøy. He had a special affinity towards landscapes and portrait painting. However, both as a painter and printmaker, he is primarily known for his portraits. He painted many of the leading men and women in business, culture and politics.

Lund was also a skilled administrator and a persistent advocate for his artist colleagues. Over the years he held a variety of administrative posts, both at home and abroad. In 1911 he held an exhibition for young Norwegian artists ("The six") at Cassirer in Berlin and Copenhagen. In 1912, he took a large Scandinavian exhibition on tour in the United States. He served on the art jury for the 1914 Jubilee Exhibition at Frogner and was chairman of the Association of Norwegian Printmakers (1919-1925). One of his last assignments was as a juror at an exhibition in Pittsburgh during 1935.

His works can be found in the National Gallery of Norway in Oslo, which owns 13 of his pictures, in the Norwegian Parliament and inb the National Theatre, among others.[2]