Stenersen Museum

The Stenersen Museum, which is located right in the heart of the capital, is part of the City of Oslo. It houses three private art collections, all of which were donated to the city at one time or another: Rolf E. Stenersen’s Collection, Amaldus Nielsen’s Collection and Ludvig O. Ravensberg’s Collection. Exhibition space in the Museum totals about 1800m2, spread over three floors. The Museum also organises exhibitions of Norwegian and international art, mainly of a contemporary nature. Rolf E. Stenersen’s Collection In 1936 the prominent financier, author and art collector Rolf E. Stenersen (1899–1978) donated his collection of Norwegian art to the Municipality of Aker, which was later merged with the City of Oslo. The Collection consists of approximately 300 paintings and a large number of works on paper. In addition to the central collection of paintings, watercolours and prints by Edvard Munch, the collections contains examples of Norwegian Modernism from the inter-war years by Ludvig Karsten, Rolf Nesch, Olav Strømme, Kai Fjell, Bjarne Engebret and Erik Harry Johannessen among others. Amaldus Nielsen’s Painting Collection There are almost 300 paintings and 100 drawings in Amaldus Nielsen’s Painting Collection, works that date from the whole of the artist’s working life. In 1933, on the 95th anniversary of Amaldus Nielsen’s birth, his family donated the collection to the City of Oslo. Nielsen studied under Hans Gude in Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe. He is especially known as the ‘painter of the South’, i.e. Southern Norway, but has also depicted other areas of the country. Not least his sketches and smaller works bear witness to his close relationship to nature. Ludvig O. Ravensberg’s Painting Collection This Collection was donated to the City of Oslo by the artist’s widow in 1972. It contains almost 160 works by Ravensberg (1871–1958), a relation of Edvard Munch’s. Ravensberg was not particularly active in the artistic circles of his day. Typical of his works is their naive and burlesque humour. He is especially known for his scenes of everyday life in the capital, occasionally with well-known figures caught in characteristic pose.