Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt (1878–1955) was a modernist of international reputation. With a renegade spirit that sought novel locations for new artistic inspiration, he lived in or near artist colonies in Provincetown in Massachusetts, Santa Fe in New Mexico, and New Hope in Pennsylvania. Weisman Art Museum, home to the largest collection of works by Nordfeldt, is pleased to present this exhibition from February 11 through July 10, 2022, after its opening appearance at Wichita Art Museum, Kansas, from September 25, 2021, through January 16, 2022.
Nordfeldt was born in Sweden and moved with his family to the United States when 14 years old. He trained at the Art Institute of Chicago as well as the Académie Julien in Paris. Nordfeldt firmly embraced the fiercely independent spirit of modernism, and he continued to explore different subjects and styles to remain fresh and authentic across his career. No less than the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York staged Nordfeldt’s Memorial Exhibition in 1956. During his lifetime, museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art and Metropolitan in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, presented his one-person exhibitions.
“Nordfeldt remains one of the least examined American painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He worked in a vein that can be presented as realism and expressionism. He deserves continued appreciation and study.”, asserted the exhibition curator, Dr. Gabriel Weisberg, Emeritus Professor of Art History, University of Minnesota.
This exhibition brings together works from fifteen museum and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the University of New Mexico Art Museum, among others, in one of the most thorough presentations of the artist’s work ever assembled. This exhibition and the accompanying catalogue are the first scholarly assessment of Nordfeldt in decades. The accompanying lavishly illustrated catalogue is published by the University of Minnesota Press.