The Path of Greatest Resistance. Sigurd Winge

On 18 February 1938, artists Sigurd Winge, Olav Strømme and Rolf Nesch embarked on a fishing trip that would have a deep impact on their artistic careers. With no experience of fishing, they joined the crew of the purse-net trawler Bratt and headed out to the herring grounds off the Sunnmøre coast. The four weeks at sea made indelible impressions on the three artists, all of whom explored aspects of the experience in their later art. The following year, impressions from the excursion featured in one of Sigurd Winge’s defining achievements, Båtfrisen, and with this creation, he represented Norway at the World’s Fair in New York in 1939.

Båtfrisen heralded a turning point for Norwegian monumental art. Large painted surfaces were challenged by bold three-dimensional mixed-media, site-specific works. Båtfrisen showed how stone, glass, wood and metal could be combined in varied and exciting ways to achieve an artistic whole.

For Sigurd Winge, Båtfrisen was the first of many major public commissions, for churches and schools, a hotel, a crematorium, corporate buildings, and passenger boats. An artist with many strings to his bow, Winge consistently followed his own artistic instinct. The materials he chose for his monumental works are inherently resistant to being formed; they need to be ground, hammered, cast, and forged before nature can become art. Also as a printmaker, he chose a challenging technique; the narrow furrows of the drypoint needle in the metal plate allowed him to cultivate the line as a primary medium of expression.

Artistic freedom was important to Sigurd Winge, but freedom was only gained by battling with constraints: “When absolutely anything is allowed – even something like skiing across your canvas – then there is no longer any freedom.”

Thanks to the National Museum, MUNCH, Kunstsilo, the University of Oslo, the Dag and Eva Kjeldsberg collection, and many other private collectors for generous loans to the exhibition. We are also deeply indebted to Sparebanken Møre for sponsoring the exhibition booklet.