Otto Sinding
Encyclopedia
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, illustrator, poet and dramatist. Sinding drew on motives from Norwegian nature, folk life and history.
Personal life
Otto Sinding was born in KongsbergKongsberg
is a town and municipality in Buskerud county, Norway. It is located at the southern end of the traditional region of Numedal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Kongsberg....
as a son of mine superindendent Matthias Wilhelm Sinding
Matthias Wilhelm Sinding
Matthias Wilhelm Sinding was a Norwegian mining engineer and factory founder.He was born in Fredrikstad as a son of Ulrik Rosing Sinding and Mette Marie Bang...
(1811–1860) and Cecilie Marie Mejdell (1817–86). He was the older brother of the sculptor Stephan Sinding
Stephan Sinding
Stephan Abel Sinding was a Norwegian-Danish sculptor. He moved to Copenhagen in 1883 and had his breakthrough the same year. In 1890 he obtained Danish citizenship. In 1810 he settled in Paris where he lived and worked until his death in 1922...
and the composer Christian Sinding
Christian Sinding
Christian August Sinding was a Norwegian composer.-Personal life:He was born in Kongsberg as a son of mine superindendent Matthias Wilhelm Sinding and Cecilie Marie Mejdell . He was a brother of the painter Otto Sinding and the sculptor Stephan Sinding...
. He was a nephew of Nicolai Mejdell
Nicolai Mejdell
Christian Henrik Nicolai Mejdell was a Norwegian mining engineer.He was born in Vang, Hedmark. He took his mining examination in 1843. He worked as manager of Selbu Copper Works and Kongsberg Silver Works, and from 1865 he was the mine superindendent for all of South-Eastern Norway...
(1822–1899) and Thorvald Mejdell
Thorvald Mejdell
Thorvald Mejdell was a Norwegian forester.He was born in Ringsaker as a son of colonel Gløer Gløersen Mejdell and Thorine Krog. He was a nephew of officer Jacob Gerhard Meydell and brother of mining engineer Nicolai Mejdell, and an uncle of jurist and writer Glør Thorvald Mejdell...
(1824–1908), and through the former a first cousin of Glør Thorvald Mejdell
Glør Thorvald Mejdell
Glør Thorvald Mejdell was a Norwegian barrister, judge and political writer.He was born in Kongsberg as a son of mining engineer Nicolai Mejdell , nephew of forester Thorvald Mejdell and grandnephew of officer Jacob Gerhard Meydell. He finished his secondary education in 1868, took the cand.jur...
, who married Otto's sister Thora Cathrine Sinding. Otto Sinding was also a first cousin of Alfred Sinding-Larsen
Alfred Sinding-Larsen
Nils Ulrik Alfred Sinding-Larsen was a Norwegian civil servant, teacher at the Military Academy, journalist and writer.-Personal life:...
and the three siblings Ernst Anton Henrik Sinding
Ernst Anton Henrik Sinding
Ernst Anton Henrik Sinding was a Norwegian school director.-Personal life:He was born in Larvik as a son of vicar Otto Ludvig Sinding and Dorothea Magdalene Lammers...
, Elisabeth Sinding and Gustav Adolf Sinding.
In April 1874 in Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
Otto Sinding married Anna Christine Nielsen (1855–1914), an adoptive daughter of Hans Gude
Hans Gude
Hans Fredrik Gude was a Norwegian romanticist painter and is considered along with Johan Christian Dahl to be one of Norway's foremost landscape painters...
and Betsy Anker. Their son Sigmund Sinding became a notable painter.
Career
Otto Sinding went to art school in ChristianiaOslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
where he studied law and served as a civil servant. His first attempts at landscape painting earned him a scholarship, with which he went to Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
in Germany where he continued his studies. He studied art under Hans Gude
Hans Gude
Hans Fredrik Gude was a Norwegian romanticist painter and is considered along with Johan Christian Dahl to be one of Norway's foremost landscape painters...
at the Baden School of Art in Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
. It was there that Sinding also came into contact with Wilhelm Ludwig Friedrich Riefstahl and Karl Theodor von Piloty.
In 1876 he returned to Norway and then painted the altarpiece of Christ on the cross for Paul's Church in Christiania (Oslo) and several pictures by Norwegian folk tales and dramatic coastlines . In 1880 he made a trip to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and then settled in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, where he painted a series of animated landscapes and marines. During the winter of 1886, he undertook a study trip to the Lofoten Islands. Some of his best known works would be his landscape paintings from Lofoten
Lofoten
Lofoten is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Though lying within the Arctic Circle, the archipelago experiences one of the world's largest elevated temperature anomalies relative to its high latitude.-Etymology:...
.
In 1891 he established residence in Lysaker
Lysaker
Lysaker is a section of and a postal code area of the Norwegian municipality of Bærum, just west of Oslo.Geographically, it is bordered by Lysakerelven on the east, which also forms the border to Oslo; Fornebu to the south; Stabekk to the west; and Jar to the north...
. From 1903 on the artist lived in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
where he was a professor at the Art Academy of Munich.
He died in Munich in November 1909.