Theodor Kittelsen (1857-1914) grew up in Kragerø. His father died at an early age, leaving a wife and 8 children in straightened circumstances. Theodor was only 11 years old when he was apprenticed to a watchmaker. Many people realised, however, that he possessed a rare artistic talent and they helped him, at the age of 17, to travel to Christiania (Oslo) where he took drawing lessons with architect Wilhelm von Hanno.
Later he received financial support to study art in Munich, where he stayed for three happy years. In 1882 he was granted a state scholarship to study in Paris, but Paris did not suit him and he soon went back to Munich. No longer happy there, he returned to Norway in 1887, vowing never to leave it again.
He spent some years on the islands of Skomvær and Røst. This meeting with the mighty Lofoten landscape was a turning point in his life. Here he encountered the cormorant, which he saw as his fairytale bird of the ocean, like the capercailzie of the deep, lonely spruce forests. The cormorant appears in many of the nature drawings in his Lofoten collection, published in 1890. This was his breakthrough.
After moving south again, he married Inga Kristine Dahl and settled with her in Eggedal in Buskerud in 1896. Three years later they built their own home, Lauvlia, in Sigdal. Kittelsen spent his best artistic years at Lauvlia. During this period, he also illustrated a number of folklore collections, including those of Asbjørnsen and Moe. Life at Lauvlia was not easy. He and Inga had to struggle to provide for themselves and nine children and as time went by Kittelsen’s health began to fail. There was one bright spot in 1908 when he was made Knight of the Order of St. Olav. However, he was forced to sell and leave Lauvlia in 1910. He was granted an artist’s stipend in 1911 but died a broken man in 1914.
Theodor Kittelsen depicted people, animals and landscapes. We know him best as a fairytale illustrator, but he was in fact a very versatile artist. The stamps commemorating the 150th anniversary of Kittelsen’s birth show an unknown side of this versatility. In 1893 he published a series of water colours entitled Har Dyrene Sjæl? (Do Animals have Souls?). Twenty paintings are dominated by life-like frogs, mice and insects, all with human features. They describe an ordinary, civilised life, on a special scale that makes grasshoppers as big as mice and mice as large as toads. They are all the size of human beings, while surrounding trees and houses etc. are reduced in size. The stamps feature For tidlig Nedkomst (“Premature Delivery”) and Et Overfald (“An Attack”).
NK: NK 1642-43 Subject: “An attack”, “Premature delivery” Design: Madeleine Mortensen
Value: NOK 9.00 (A-priority Europe) NOK 11.00 (A-priority worldwide)
Issue: 1 million stamps No. per sheet: 50
Printing: Offset by Royal Joh. Enschedé, Netherlands
Sales prices:
First day cover NOK NOK 23.00
Presentation pack NOK 25.00
Collector’s set NOK
53.00
Collector’s sheet NOK 40.00