Anna-Eva Bergman

The work of Anna-Eva Bergman, Norwegian and French painter, is located outside the domain of art history as envisaged within a progressive concept based on the succession of artistic avant-gardes. The use of materials such as gold and/or silver leaf combined with that of painting and a commitment to the symbolic reveal a metaphysical concept of the landscape and puts it out of step with the major aesthetic challenges of the 20th century. Recognized during her lifetime, and nevertheless held in a marginal position, her work raises renewed interest, artistic as well as critical.

Following artistic studies in Oslo and in Vienna, Anna-Eva Bergman came to Paris in 1929 where she followed for some time André Lhote's courses. She met Hans Hartung whom she married only a few months after their meeting. At the end of the 1920s and during the 1930s her work was made up essentially of drawings, watercolors and caricatures at the same time naïve, full of humor and a social or political critique sometimes fierce in the run-up to the war. She separated a first time from Hans Hartung in 1937, and then returned to live in Norway. The war years were to be a period of intellectual training for Bergman. She studied philosophy, literature and architectural laws, all the while carrying out work as an illustrator for publishing and press.

She took up painting again at the beginning of 1946 and towards the end of the 1940s carried out a large number of abstract works. Then, very quickly, she found the plastic language that is significant of her work, profoundly inspired by her Norwegian culture and her observation of the vast Nordic landscapes that she discovered while travelling to the north of Norway and to the Lofoten isles, on the frontier of Russia. In 1952 she rejoined Hartung in Paris whom she remarried in 1957.

From 1952 to 1987, she explored a singular pursuit and managed to create modern icons, images of absence, more and more marked by a form of incarnate minimalism that certain critics tie easily to the American painting of Mark Rothko or Barnett Newman, rather than the Ecole de Paris. The Galerie de France consecrated a first one-woman show to her work in 1958. The 1960s were to be those of development in her artistic career: exhibition in 1966 at the Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo; in 1967, at the Galleria Civica in Turin; in 1969, she represented Norway in the Sao Paulo Biennale. A retrospective in 1977-1978 at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris crowned her career however modest with regard to the uniqueness and the importance of the work.

It was not until several years after her death that her work began to arouse interest on its own, apart from its biographical and historical context. The creation of the Fondation Hans Hartung-Anna Eva Bergman in 1994 thus furnished exceptional material for research, rich with thousands of works and archives enabling the study of the impact and originality of her work. In addition to a number of monographic exhibitions organized in Norway, Germany, Sweden or in France (Musée Picasso in Antibes in 1995, Musée des Jacobins in Toulouse in 2000, etc.), exhibition curators such as Michael Tarentino (Event Horizon, Irish Museum of Modern Art, 1996) or Christine Macel (« Nel mezzo di Mezzo. Contemporary Art in Mediterranean Sea», Museo Rizo, Palerme, 2015) confronted her work to that of contemporary artists, pointing out its universal and timeless strength, and thus opening new perspectives through which one can discover her work today. In 2016, the National Museum of Contemporary Art of Oslo is dedicating an exhibition to her graphic works and in 2017, the Domaine de Kerguéhennec will organize an important monographic exbition of Anna-Eva Bergman.

Her work can be seen in many international public collections such as The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo (NO), the Bergen Kunstmuseum in Bergen (NO), the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (NO), the Kunsthalle Nürnberg (DE), the Albright Knox Art Gallery (US), the Musée d’Art Moderne Centre Pompidou in Paris (FR), the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (FR), the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-De-Vence (FR), the Museo Civico de Turin (IT), the Fundació Per Amor A l'art à Valence (ES), etc.)

View of the exhibition "Anna-Eva Bergman. L'atelier d'Antibes (1973-1987)", Domaine de Kerguéhennec, Bignan, 2017 - Courtesy Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

View of the exhibition Anna-Eva Bergman, Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris, 2016 - Photo © Aurélien Mole

View of the exhibition "Anna-Eva Bergman. Peintures 1977 - 1987", 2014, Galerie Jérôme Poggi - © Aurélien Mole

N°22-1981 Horizon d'Argent, 1981
Acrylic, silver sheet on canvas
180 x 250 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°16-1974 Pluie, 1974
acrylic and metal foil
104 x 74 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris
Courtesy Galerie Jérôme Poggi / Photo Nicolas Brasseur

(Non titré), 1968
Ink on paper
32 x 24 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°29-1977 Petite barque d'argent, 1977
Acrylic and metal foil on wooden panel
46 x 65 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°44-1978 Jeux de feuille I, 1978
Acrylic and metal foil on Isorel wooden panel
61 x 50 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°21B-1979 Côte nordique, 1979
Acrylic and metal foil on paper mounted on wooden panel
11,2 x 13,7 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°20-1981 Paysage de montagne, 1981
Acrylic and metal foil on canvas
200 x 250 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°32-1973 Ciel noir, 1973
Acrylique et feuille de métal sur toile
81 × 100 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°8 - 1964 Petit mur d'argent, 1964
Acrylic and metal sheet on panel
54 x 73 cm

N°27- Horizon argent bleu, 1968
vinyl and metal foil on wooden panel
46 x 61 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°60 - Paysage avec ciel noir, 1969
vinyl and metal foil on canvas
99,5 x 64,8 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°3 - Nuit polaire, 1968
vinyl and metal foil on wooden panel
46 x 61 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

Non titré, 1970
acrylic and metal foil on canvas
60 x 49 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°20 - Horizon à une ligne, 1971
acrylic and metal foil on wooden panel
65 x 54 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°13 - Tourbillon seul, 1974
acrylic and metal foil marouflaged to canvas
74 x 104 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°24 - Côte d'or, 1977
acrylic and metal foil on marouflaged to canvas
50 x 65 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°1 - Horizon bleu et ciel blanc, 1974
acrylic and metal foil
97 X 130 CM

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°13-1977 Cap bleu, 1977
Acrylic, silver sheet on canvas
180 x 142 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

GB 42 1-1973 (encadrée), 1973
Wood engraving
200,8 x 78 cm
Frame: 230 x 90 cm
Exemplaire N° X/XXIII

N°16-1973 Fjord noir, 1973
Acrylique et feuille de métal sur panneau de bois isorel
60 x 81 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

GB 64-1976 Bois III, 1976
Wood engraving
334 x 726 mm
Frame: 527 x 898 mm
Exemplaire N° 9/50
Courtesy Fondation Hartung - Bergman, Antibes et Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°47-1962 Long mur vertical, 1962
Vinyl and metal sheet on canvas
76 x 200 cm

N°30 - 1965 Falaise, 1965
Vinyl painting and metal sheet on canvas
162 x 130 cm

Courtesy Fondation Hartung-Bergman & Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

N°18-1973 Triangle, 1973
Acrylic and metal foil on Isorel wooden panel
100 X 73 cm

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N°17 - 1976 Nunatak II, 1976
Acrylic and metal foil on canvas
250 X 200 cm

N°54-1968 Glacier, 1968
Tempera, encre, feuille de métal sur carton marouflé sur toile
250 X 200 cm

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N°62-1968 Horizon argent et noir, 1968
Vinyl painting, ink and metal sheet on canvas
74.50 x 104.50 cm

N°X4-1970, 1970
Acrylic and metal foil on paper mounted on canvas
99 x 65 cm

N°5-1970 Paysage vert et bleu, 1970
Acrylic and metal foil on paper mounted on canvas
80 x 60 cm

N°15-1970 Une autre lune II, 1970
Acrylic and metal foil on cardboard mounted on canvas
74.80 x 104.50 cm

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N°54-1970 Deux terres, 1970
Chinese Ink and pastel on paper
51 x 36.50 cm

N°46-1970 Planète, 1970
Chinese Ink and pastel on paper
49.50 x 32.30 cm

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N°27-1970 Horizons bleus, 1970
Vinyl painting and metal sheet on wooden Isorel board
50 x 65 cm

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N°9-1972 Horizon rouge et argent avec Bismuth, 1972
Acrylic and metal foil on plywood panel
30 x 24 cm

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N°22-1976 Rocher doré, 1976
Acrylic, pastel and metal foil on paper
49 X 31.80 cm

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N°8-1985, 1985
Acrylic and ink on laminated paper on plywood
31.50 x 24 cm