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Odd Nerdrum: Self Portraits
Edited by Bengt Tornvall. Text by Allis Helleland.
For a painter who took his earliest bearings from Rembrandt, and who has defiantly espoused the values of old master painting, the self-portrait is a natural enough genre to pursue. For Odd Nerdrum, the attractions of self-portraiture run much deeper, however. Nerdum has frequently alluded to the “conflicted preoccupation with origins and personal identity” that his paintings express, and traces this preoccupation to his discovery that his father was not the father he had known growing up, but a previous lover of his mother’s. Also abandoned by his mother at an early age, he recollects of his early years: “I was a beggar in a world ruled by others. The person I found in the mirror was myself, I saw myself reflected in my own eyes, not those of others.” Nerdrum’s difficult childhood and the isolation he has endured as a painter have greatly intensified the relevance of the self-portrait, a genre at which he has excelled, and for which he has become particularly well known. This volume collects Nerdum’s self-portraits for the first time, with more than 100 color reproductions.
Featured image, "Selfportrait with eyes shut" (1991), is reproduced from Odd Nerdrum: Self Portraits.
"In the years around 1990, more drama and conflict begins to enter the motifs. This happens at a time when Odd Nerdrum's own life is turning somersaults. Hew was finding it difficult to adjust to conventional family life with wife and children and mostly lived according to his own desires. The family was shattered when he chose to enter into a new relationship, which in turn ended shortly afterwards, so he felt that all was in uproar and chaos around him. Quite naturally, his paintings from this period are even darker and full of pain." - Allis Helleland, excerpted from Odd Nerdrum: Self Portraits.
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FORMAT: Hbk, 9.75 x 12 in. / 160 pgs / 108 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $49.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $67.5 ISBN: 9789173535212 PUBLISHER: Atlantis AVAILABLE: 4/30/2012 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: *not available
Published by Atlantis. Edited by Bengt Tornvall. Text by Allis Helleland.
For a painter who took his earliest bearings from Rembrandt, and who has defiantly espoused the values of old master painting, the self-portrait is a natural enough genre to pursue. For Odd Nerdrum, the attractions of self-portraiture run much deeper, however. Nerdum has frequently alluded to the “conflicted preoccupation with origins and personal identity” that his paintings express, and traces this preoccupation to his discovery that his father was not the father he had known growing up, but a previous lover of his mother’s. Also abandoned by his mother at an early age, he recollects of his early years: “I was a beggar in a world ruled by others. The person I found in the mirror was myself, I saw myself reflected in my own eyes, not those of others.” Nerdrum’s difficult childhood and the isolation he has endured as a painter have greatly intensified the relevance of the self-portrait, a genre at which he has excelled, and for which he has become particularly well known. This volume collects Nerdum’s self-portraits for the first time, with more than 100 color reproductions.
