Johan Fredrik Eckersberg

Visual artist born 1822 in Drammen, died 1870 in Sandvika, Bærum. Johan Fredrik Eckersberg was a Norwegian painter best known for his depictions of the high mountains. In 1843, Eckersberg became a pupil of Johannes Flintoe at the School of Design.

In the summer of 1846, he traveled with Hans Gude and August Cappelen in Gudbrandsdalen and Jotunheimen, where he got a decisive impression of Norwegian mountain nature, and followed them to Düsseldorf in the autumn. For two years he was here a pupil of Johann W. Schirmer. From the spring of 1848 he worked in Oslo, where he painted landscapes, illustrated legends and fairy tales by Asbjørnsen and supplied a number of drawings for Chr. Tønsberg's plans, especially Norwegian National Costumes (1852).

Threatened by tuberculosis, he stayed in Madeira in 1852–1854, and some of his landscapes from there were published in color lithography in 1855 under the title Views of Madeira. After another stay in Düsseldorf in 1854–1856, he settled in Oslo, and established a painting school there in 1859, which became of great importance to the awakening domestic art life. After his death, the school was taken over by Morten Müller and Knud Bergslien. Eckersberg is first and foremost the high mountain's portrayer. After a romantic youth period, influenced by Gude and Cappelen, he found a sober, realistic landscape style, which primarily has its strength in drawing and composition. The National Gallery in Oslo owns two of his major works, From Valle in Setesdal (1852) and From Jotunheimen (1866), in addition to 10 smaller landscapes.