The sunshine painter, Hans Dahl
In the summer of 2025, we are showing the largest ever exhibition of Hans Dahl (1849-1937). The sunshine painter Hans Dahl was born in Hardanger, but lived a long artistic life in Düsseldorf and Berlin, where he cultivated the glorious splendor of the western Norwegian landscape.
Every summer we offer unique experiences in exhibitions with paintings of the highest quality. These have been collected for our large audience, and chosen with love and joy. Nowhere do you get as close to good art as here.
Based on the history of the Cobalt Works, which attracted promising young artists in the 1880s, we have for a long time shown Norwegian and Nordic art from the Golden Age.
For an international audience, Hans Dahl's art has helped to shape the image of towering Norwegian mountains and twinkling fjords, which form the framework around the daily activities of friendly people.
Leading artists such as Erik Werenskiold, Frits Thaulow and Christian Krohg also played a significant role as active citizens and ensured that living conditions gradually became livable for visual artists in Norway. The ground was prepared for what we have for more than 100 years called "Artists of the Golden Age" - among these names, in addition to the already mentioned Krohg, Werenskiold and Thaulow, we also find Munthe, Backer, Kielland, Kittelsen, Skredsvig, Peterssen etc. These dominate the major museums, are duly mentioned in any overview of Norwegian art history and achieve the highest prices at art auctions.
But what about the painters who chose to live abroad, who exhibited and were awarded prizes at the most prestigious exhibitions and regularly delivered their motifs to an ardent audience spread all over the world? In any case, they won no place within Norwegian art history. On the other hand, they have a solid place within what we can call the second history of art.
His incessantly repetitive big-laughing or big-smiling horny farm girls have nothing to do with Norway or art
JENS THIIS, director of the National Gallery 1908–1941
For Dahl, Norway was a country from which he lived for large parts of his life at a distance, and although frequent visits to his homeland constantly refreshed his memory of the country, his most famous motifs primarily present an idea of Norway, rather than realistic depictions of the same.
The Norwegian motif never left his art, and he strongly asserted its importance. One should "pour from the rich, domestic spring", rather than to "imitate the weak in another's art", said Dahl.
The question of Norwegianness in art was probably an important topic in an artistic climate where national identity and independence were of great importance. Not only in young Norway, but also in other nations, the search for the uniqueness of national identity was of great importance throughout the 19th century.
Hans Dahl's pictures were created in a time characterized by major societal changes. The predictable life that had been lived since time immemorial was replaced by a more modern life, with many choices and few safety nets.
With an artist like Christian Krohg, this was expressed through his interest and concern for the fate of young girls in the big city, as we see in the Albertine pictures, Edvard Munch dealt with the anxiety-filled existence of the big city, as in Evening on Karl Johan, while Theodor Kittelsen took the audience into a the pictorial world where nature still contained the figures of folk fantasy.
For Hans Dahl, a swarm around life became as it perhaps never was, but should be his preferred circle of motifs. He himself stated quite simply the purpose of his paintings: "I want all people to be happy and look happy." In countless variations, he painted motifs with people living in harmony with nature and themselves throughout a long artistic career.
There is a rare lifeblood that flows through Hans Dahl's paintings, created with a twinkle in his eye. This is the time to rediscover art to enjoy.
The exhibition "the sunshine artist Hans Dahl" will be shown at The Cobalt Works 24 May - 5 October 2025.
Hans Dahl
Hans Dahl born Hardanger 1849, died in Sogn 1937. Educated in Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf 1872–76. Lived in Berlin 1888–1919. Annual summer stays in Balestrand in Sogn.
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