Personal life

She was born in Ås

Ås

Ås is a municipality in Akershus county, Norway. It is part of the Follo traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Ås...

 as a daughter of educator and physicist Gabriel Gabrielsen Holtsmark

Gabriel Gabrielsen Holtsmark

Gabriel Gabrielsen Holtsmark was a Norwegian educator, physicist and actuary.-Personal life:He was born in Asker as a son of farmer and mayor Bent Holtsmark and his wife Anne Elisabeth Gabrielsen. He was a brother of Bernt, Torger and Wilhelm Holtsmark...

 (1867–1954) and his wife Margrete Weisse (1871–1933). She was a maternal granddaughter of philologist Johan Peter Weisse

Johan Peter Weisse

-Personal life:He was born in Fluberg as a son of physician Joachim Frederik Weisse and his wife Grethe Fleischer. His grandfather had migrated to Norway from Brandenburg. The family moved to Trondhjem in 1833....

, and a paternal granddaughter of agriculturalist and politician Bent Holtsmark

Bent Holtsmark

Bent Holtsmark was a Norwegian agriculturalist and politician.He was born in Lier, but moved to Asker in 1849. He was a farmer at Tveter farm, and also owned the farms Berg, Vøien and Sem. He was decorated with the King Oscar II Medal for his work in agriculture, and was also mayor of Asker from...

. She was a niece of politicians Bernt

Bernt Holtsmark

Bernt Holtsmark was a Norwegian farmer and politician for the Conservative Party and the Liberal Left Party. He was a four-term member of the Parliament of Norway, and served as Minister of Agriculture from 1910 to 1912...

 and Torger Holtsmark

Torger Holtsmark

Torger Holtsmark was a Norwegian farmer and politician for the Conservative Party.He was born at Tveter farm in Asker as a son of Bent Holtsmark and his wife Anne Elisabeth Gabrielsen. He was a brother of Bernt and Wilhelm Holtsmark...

, and a sister of professors Johan

Johan Peter Holtsmark

Johan Peter Holtsmark was a Norwegian physicist, who studied spectral line broadening and electron scattering. In 1929, while at the Norwegian Institute of Technology , Holtsmark established acoustics research laboratories, focusing on architectural acoustics and sound insulation...

 and Anne Holtsmark

Anne Holtsmark

Anne Elisabeth Holtsmark was a Norwegian philologist.-Personal life:She was born in Kristiania, the second of five children of Gabriel Gabrielsen Holtsmark and Margrete Weisse , and grew up in Kristiania and Ås...

. Herself, she married Haakon R. Brækken in July 1936, but the marriage was dissolved.

Career

She attended the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry

Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry

The Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry was established in 1818.In 1996 the National Academy of Craft and Art Industry became part of Oslo National Academy of the Arts .-Noted alumni:-External links:*...

 from 1924 to 1927 and the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts

Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts

The Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts is a Norwegian university offering studies in the areas of specialization painting, photography / video / film, digital art, sound art, sculpture, installation, performance art, and art theory.-History:...

 from 1927 to 1930. Her most important teacher was Axel Revold

Axel Revold

Axel Revold was a Norwegian painter, illustrator, and art professor at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts for twenty years. He was highly decorated for his merits.-Personal life:...

, and she was also influenced by Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen

Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen

Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen was a Danish painter.He studied under Axel Revold at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts from 1927 to 1929, and then under Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky at Bauhaus Dessau from 1930 to 1931. He was a Surrealist painter, and agitated for the style in several...

 to take up the Surrealist

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 style. Some of her paintings were Expressionist

Expressionism

Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...

. She also became a Communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

, and stayed several times in France where she also studied under Georg Jacobsen

Georg Jacobsen

Georg Jacobsen was a Danish painter.He studied under Viggo Johansen at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1906 to 1911. He later spent time in Paris, from 1919 to 1935, as well as Italy and Spain. From 1935 to 1940 he worked at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts...

 in 1936.

She had her first exhibit at Kunstnerforbundet in 1935, and had major exhibits in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 in 1935 and Lund, Sweden in 1937. Some of her works, especially the main work Mennesket og vilkårene (1935), were controversial, and it was not bought by the National Gallery of Norway

National Gallery of Norway

The National Gallery of Norway is a gallery in Oslo, Norway. Since 2003 it is administratively a part of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design.-History:...

 until 1993. The National Gallery does own twelve of her landscape paintings. In 1959 she was one of the winners of a contest to be displayed in the Parliament of Norway. Her work Solens gang was woven by Else Halling between 1959 and 1965, and was displayed in the Central Hall. She retired in 1970 because of an eye condition. She died in March 1998 in Ås.