Hans Heyerdahl

Hans Heyerdahl was a Norwegian naturalist painter. He was born in Dalarna in Sweden, was the son of Halvor Heyerdahl (1825–1900) and grew up in Drammen. After a couple of years at Bergslien's painting school, he went to Munich in 1874, where he attracted attention with the superbly executed composition Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise (1877). In 1878–1882 he was in Paris as a pupil of Léon Bonnat, but also studied the old masters, especially Rubens, a study he continued in Florence 1882–1884, where Arnold Böcklin's myth-writing art also became decisive for him. In the Paris period, he painted, in addition to the large realistic composition The Dying Child, which was bought by the French state, a number of picturesquely rich figure studies, rears and portraits, Laura Gundersen (1879), At the window (1881), The Champagne Girl (circa 1880 ). In 1885 he returned home. In Åsgårdstrand he painted bright summer pictures such as Sisters and Bathing Boys (both 1887), and at the studio in Oslo masterpieces such as Arbeiderens død (1888) and the dazzlingly skillfully painted nude study Svart-Anna (1887). Even later, Heyerdahl could reach high, particularly as a portrait of women, but his impressionable talent not infrequently went astray during the neo-romantic and symbolist currents of the 1890s. In later years, he stayed mostly in Paris and depicted Montmartre in a number of pictures. Heyerdahl is richly represented in Drammen's Museum of Art and Cultural History, the National Museum/National Gallery in Oslo owns 41 pictures of him.