Theodor Kittelsen

Theodor Kittelsen is the painter who gave Norway’s trolls their faces. His drawings and paintings of forest trolls, water spirits and folk tale creatures are still how many Norwegians picture them, and he was also a fine painter of lonely, moody landscapes.

Born in Kragerø, he was apprenticed to a watchmaker as a boy before his talent was spotted. He studied drawing in Christiania (Oslo) and then in Munich and Paris, and settled back in Norway in 1887. He illustrated the Norwegian folk tales collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe, and his book Svartedauen (The Black Death) of 1900 is a haunting series on the plague years. His home Lauvlia in Sigdal is now a museum.

His pictures mix the naive and the uncanny: in Ekko and his forest scenes, look for faces hidden in rocks, trees and hills.