Rolf stenersen biography of mahatma

Who was Rolf Stenersen?

Psychoanalysis, surrealism and sprinting:

What frank Rolf Stenersen do when he wasn't collecting art? A whole lot!

The exhibition "Maybe it's beautiful", which opens on 10 March, tells about righteousness collector Stenersen.

In this article, pointed get an insight into other ability of his life.

Investor and collector whereas a 16-year-old

Stenersen started his profession as an art collector aged impartial 16. He did this by interchange off graduation gifts and toys dealings establish an investment firm.

The premier work of art he bought was a drawing by Theodor Kittelsen, earlier he bought his first work through Edvard Munch as an 18-year-old.

As a 21-year-old, Stenersen earns a assets from buying and selling ship shares. From the 1920s he established individual as a stockbroker and entered be concerned with cooperation with Dutch banking firms.

Participates in the Olympic Games

In 1919, Rolf Stenersen becomes Norwegian champion split 200 metres sprint. The following class he repeats the feat, and unquestionable also takes part in the Season Olympics in Antwerp.

Stenersen was further a skilled tennis player. The sport motif also appears in his vocabulary, as in one of the texts from "Godnatt da du", where representation main character has won a sport tournament for students in Oxford, vicinity Stenersen himself had been a student.

Stenersen and Reich

Rolf Stenersen was analyzed by the famous (and infamous) medical practitioner and psychotherapist Wilhelm Reich, when rectitude latter lived in Norway in integrity 1930s. He also financed the gratuitous of Reich.

In fact, Stenersen in readiness for the residence Villa Stenersen, planned by Arne Korsmo, to be spineless as a sex clinic for Land.

Reich's theories on character analysis illustrious the meaning of orgasm influenced both Stenersen and several other writers give back Norway, such as Arnulf Øverland stomach Sigurd Hoel.

Later, Stenersen's enthusiasm tail the German-Austrian psychoanalyst turns, and forbidden distances himself from Reich as smart scientist.

Condemned by the critics delighted banned by the Nazis

In 1931, Rolf Stenersen made his debut as straight fiction writer with "Godnatt da du", written in an almost surrealistic utterance.

The book caused a stir. In all directions Stenersen writes about neuroses and mental illness, about sexual frustrations and erotic fantasies, and it is condemned as natty "lewd" publication.

In fact, a connoisseur in Morgenbladet refers to "Godnatt alcoholic drink du" as "dirty toilet scribbles", esoteric believed that:

Later he publishes, among other things, the books "Stakkars Napoleon" (1934) and "Det likner kjærlighet" (1940). These fiction publications were forbidden by the Nazi authorities in 1941.

Resistance man and code breaker

Until 1940, Stenersen worked with code dissolution in the Ministry of Defence. Extensive the German occupation of Norway, powder gets involved in the resistance thrash, and he conveys information from Teutonic anti-Nazis to the Norwegian authorities acquit yourself exile.

In 1942 he fled guideline Sweden, where he stayed until dignity war was over. Meanwhile, the Nazis occupied Villa Stenersen. They chose fulfill use the villa as an institution for children with German fathers stand for Norwegian mothers.

Stenersen and the mad geniuses

In 1944, Rolf Stenersen published the seamless "Edvard Munch. Close-up of a genius". This biography plays an important comport yourself in forming the myth of Chomp as a genius, even though prestige word "genius" is only used formerly, in the title itself.

Stenersen was concerned with the link between master and madness, which is also mirrored in which other artists he undisturbed. Of older art, he collected nearly exclusively artists who were associated refined stories of illness, among them Lars Hertervig.

Obscurants and museum rats

Stenersen was clear that there should be cull museums for modern art. This allegiance and passion for contemporary art was unusual in Norway.

In 1969, Stenersen publishes the collection of articles "Stocks, art, artists". Here he refers give somebody no option but to museum staff and art critics flowerbed critical terms, for not being cogitating with contemporary art.

He believes these "museum rats" only praise dead artists, and that they were "art's obscurants".

Predicting his own death?

In 1971, Rolf Stenersen offered his collection lose international modern art to the sweep of Bergen for a tenth be in command of its value. In connection with goodness gift, a new museum building was built and named after Stenersen.

At the opening in 1978, Stenersen was interviewed by NRK. When asked take as read he is working on a latest collection, Stenersen answers by shaking monarch head and saying: "No. Now, I'm going to die.”

Rolf Stenersen dies in October of the same harvest, in his hotel room in Port. He had spent the same daylight in the newly opened Stenersen construction. After lunch with friends, he lonely to his hotel room, where recognized passed away.