Asta Nørregaard: Truth and Beauty

After studying art for many years under highly respected teachers, Asta Nørregaard (1853 1933) became an established artist. She exhibited at the Paris Salon and carried out numerous portrait commissions for prominent figures from the upper class of Norwegian society, and from the fields of science and culture. She also ran her own painting school and established endowments for female artists and musicians. Even though Nørregaard is primarily known for her portraits, she also painted landscapes, interiors, and religious scenes. For many years, Nørregaard was overshadowed by more famous contemporaries, but recently she has gained recognition as a substantial force in Norwegian art history. This book brings together the breadth of Nørregaard's artistic practice. It presents portraits of leading cultural and scientific figures of her time, studies of dress and fashion, and a museum-based detective story in which the question of who is portrayed takes centre stage. Taken together, the texts offer an understanding of Nørregaard, not only as a portrait painter, but as an active participant in the art world and as an artist who challenged the boundaries of what women could be in her time. AUTHOR: Asta Nørregaard was a Norwegian painter. She distinguished herself as a highly skilled portrait artist and is best known for her pastel portraits of bourgeois women from the late 1890s. Nørregaard had a remarkably prolific career and painted more than 300 portraits over the course of 40 years. She was awarded the King's Medal of Merit in gold in 1920. SELLING POINTS: . Assembles the full breadth of Asta Nørregaard's work, including portraits, for which she was primarily known, as well as landscapes, interiors, and religious scenes . Published to accompany an exhibition at the National Museum in Oslo running from May 28 to October 18 2026 100 colour illustrations