The West Coast Art Collection comprises works devoted to the Norwegian landscape. The overview exhibition brings together for the first time around 50 paintings and several prints by artists ranging from Johan Christian Dahl to Edvard Munch and from Peder Balke to Frits Thaulow. Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857) is considered the father of modern Norwegian landscape painting. His art, perceived as a spontaneous translation of the experience of nature into the movement of painting, gained early recognition in Europe. He encouraged fellow artists to get to know the ‘wild nature’ of his homeland. Academy professors such as Hans Gude (1825–1903) and Andreas Achenbach (1815–1910), renowned as the ‘master of land and sea,’ also played an important role in popularising the ‘image of Norway’ in Europe. Edvard Munch (1863–1944) moved away from pure landscape painting; with him, international modernism gained the necessary momentum. The Kunst der Westküste collection thus highlights the key art-historical milestones in the development of Norwegian landscape painting from Romanticism to Modernism.

Editors: Ulrike Wolff-Thomsen/Museum Kunst der Westküste and Tilmann von Stockhausen/Städtische Museen Freiburg

Authors: Helmut Börsch-Supan, Ernst Haverkamp, Katrin Hippel, Ulrike Wolff-Thomsen

Publisher: Boyens Buchverlag GmbH & Co. KG, Heide

Edition: Hardcover

Format: 30.5 x 25.5 x 1.3 cm

Weight: 936 g

Pages: 117

Language: German

Number of colour illustrations: 76

Number of black and white illustrations: 34

ISBN: 978-3-8042-1486-6