© Knut Steen / BONO. Photo: © Ivar Kvaal
Drømmersken
- Date 1992
- Unveiled 2013
- Material Carrara marble
- Dimensions 250 x 173 x 46 cm
«I want to make the bronze sing and the marble float.»
Photo: © Morten Krogvold
Knut Steen
(b. Oslo, Norway, 1924-2011)
Knut Steen was one of Norway’s greatest and most controversial sculptors. Growing up at Kampen in Oslo, he discovered his interest in the creative professions early on. As a young man he played the trumpet in a jazz orchestra, got a job at an advertising agency, was accepted by the National Academy of Craft and Art Industry in 1944, and subsequently by the Academy of Fine Art under Per Palle Storm. While he was still in his twenties, in 1953, Steen won the competition to make the Whaling Monument in Sandefjord (installed in 1960). This monument is seen as a major work in modern Norwegian sculpture history, but Steen regarded the statue Aurora (1982) as his best work. Steen’s last monumental work was the seven-metre-tall granite sculpture portraying King Olav V. The sculpture was the object of a bitter dispute, before it finally found a home in Gulen in 2007. The year after, Knut Steen was awarded Officer of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav for his contributions as sculptor. In 2007 he was awarded Commander of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity (Commendatore dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia). He died in Italy in September 2011.
Drømmersken (Dreaming Woman) was inspired by Steen's long-lasting professional career in Carrara, a place in Italy known for its appealing white marble and long traditions of stonemasonry. This material was well-suited with Steen's artistic instinct. He created several slightly abstracted marble figures, in the same style as Drømmersken. Through his virtuosity, the heavy stone is made graceful, lightweight, almost floating, just as the dreaming countenance seems to rest completely unburdened on the classic pillar.
Knut Steen was known for aspiring to beauty in his work. He had one goal in his life as a sculptor: to make the bronze sing and the marble hover. Steen worked in granite, concrete, bronze, steel, and marble, and his artistic style intersected with realism and modernism.
From 1976, Steen lived in Pietrasanta, Carrara in Italy, where he established his studio and became part of the artistic community. He was often referred to as “the maestro” among friends. This was the birthplace of many of his marble sculptures. He stripped them down to their purest form and allowed the light, as much as the stone itself, to create the shapes. Drømmersken is a balancing, semi-abstract marble face with flowing wave-shapes, placed high on a marble pedestal. Both the shape and the natural marbling in the stone create sensual lines and a feeling of elegant movement.
Guided tours
Experience Drømmersken and many of the other artworks in the collection with our art mediators. We offer guided tours for private groups all year round.