Page 41 - Studio International - March 1965

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addition to a wide selection of completed paintings
and prints. the Museum contains Munch's working
material through most of his lifetime: unfinished paint­
ings, drawings, sketch-books and a large collection of
his letters. But the less specialized visitor is also well
looked after; considerations such as design and site,
one of Oslo's most agreeable restaurants and a recital
room, all help to make it a place that people want to
visit. It is administered bv the Oslo Municipal Art Collec­
tions. who are also responsible for the Vigeland
Museum, at the other end of the city. Here the studio
and workshop of Munch's controversial contemporary
form the basis of the museum, opened in 1950. To visit
it gives a better idea of Vigeland's talent than the more
publicized Frogner Park, which, to an English taste, can
seem too grandiose and sometimes insensitive. At the

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Museum one sees him at his best, as a rather good late­
romantic sculptor, his strongest work coming from the
end of the last century and the beginning of this one.
Oslo is soon to have another important museum of
modern art, containing the collection made by Sonja
Henie and Niels Onstad and presented to the country
in 1961. The competition was won by Jon Eikvar and
Svein-Erik Engebretsen, whose scheme has been very
highly praised. The great strength of the collection,
shown at the Tate Gallery in 1962, consists of School
of Paris artists, but there are also important works by
Norwegians. OneoftheseisJakobWeidemann (b.1923).
Weidemann's work is abstract, although frequently
only just across the border. There is always a strong
feeling of northern nature in his paintings; often the
dense and rugged paint will suggest forest material,
leaves and twigs, moss and bark, while the colours are
subtle and restrained, shot occasionally with piercing,
brighter touches. One is tempted to suggest compari­
sons with Lundquist-could Weidemann's important
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