In the tumultuous era of Norwegian history when women were not even considered to be full citizens, a shining ray from a canvas as an exceptional and brilliant artist, Harriet Backer, broke the boundaries of women’s identity, consequently changing the art history of Norway. Been famous in Norway while securing herself the position of a member of the board of trustees and the acquisitions committee of the Norwegian National Gallery for twenty years while opening a painting school where she taught some of the prominent artists like Nikolai Astrup, Halfdan Egedius, and Helga Ring Reusch, Backer is still lesser known in the art world outside her reign. Changing this fact of lesser acknowledgment, Musee d’Orsay presents her work through an exhibition, which will last January 12th, 2025.
An initiative of the Oslo National Museum and the Kode Bergen Art Museum, the exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Stockholm National Museum and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
Marked as the first retrospective of Backer’s work in France, this exhibition holds one of the significant principles of the Musée d’Orsay program: to offer an opportunity to discover the most emblematic yet lesser-known artists of the time. In fact, it not only gives a chance to witness the work of the mesmerizing craftsmanship of an ambitious Norwegian artist but also an extraordinary perspective of the society and significant artistic developments of the second half of the nineteenth-century of the country. The museum particularly focussed on the art of Norway because of its dynamic art scene and closer ties of Norwegian artists developed with the Parisian avant-garde, further strengthening the overview of French artistic developments.
Harriet Backer painted excellent interior scenes and plein-air paintings with a combination of Realist and Impressionism movements in the lighter palette and a keen interest in the light variations over her canvas. In her long career, she portrayed a limited number of subjects with a direct study of chosen motifs. Having her training in Munich and Paris, she opened a mixed school of painting, which was one of the most significant art schools even before the creation of the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1875, Harriet befriended Kitty Kielland, a landscape painter and campaigner for women’s rights with whom she shared an apartment studio for the rest of her life. At the turn of the twentieth century, such close friendships between women painters were not uncommon, with many remaining unmarried for personal and professional reasons.
The museum presents a statement on the artist,
“Although little known outside Norway, within her country, Harriet Backer was the most renowned female painter of the late 19th century. Highly acclaimed for her rich, luminous use of color, she created an eminently personal style that blends interior scenes and open-air painting. She drew inspiration from the realist movement as well as from the innovations of Impressionism, with free brushstrokes and meticulous attention to variations in light. She is also famous for her tender portraits of rural life and her interest in church interiors.”
Featured Image: Evening Interior by Harriet Backer; Harriet Backer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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