Regjeringskvartalet Nygaardsvolds plass Oslo 18jun2005

Carl Nesjar (né Carlsen; 6 July 1920 – 23 May 2015) was a Norwegian painter, sculptor and graphic artist. He is best known for his collaborations with

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

; serving for nearly twenty years as Picasso's chosen fabricator — the artist who turned Picasso's drawings and scale models into large public sculptures. One such work was

Picasso's Regjeringskvartalet murals Picasso's Regjeringskvartalet murals are a series of murals designed by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso in the late 1950s and the early 1970s. He designed five murals (''The Beach'', ''The Seagull'', ''Satyr and Faun'' and two versions of ''Th ...

which are located in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...

, the city where Nesjar lived for most of his life. He is also known for his series of "Ice Fountains” which can be found in cities around the world.

Life and career

Born Carl Carlsen in Larvik, Nesjar was raised in Southern Norway and in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He studied art at the Pratt Institute,

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, and in Oslo and Paris. Towards the beginning of his career he assumed the name 'Nesjar', the Norse word for the coastal area around Larvik. Nesjar collaborated with architect

Erling Viksjø Erling Viksjø (4 July 1910 – 2 December 1971) was a Norwegian architect. Viksjø was an early exponent of architectural modernism. He was also noted for his use of textured concrete as a building material in a number of his designs. ...

on a particular concrete sculpting method called

Betograve ''Betograve'' is a type of concrete sculpting. A document published by the Nasher Sculpture Center says that betograve "...involves first pouring concrete into a form tightly packed with gravel, and, once set, precisely sand-blasting the surface of ...

. The introduction of this technique to Picasso led to a lasting collaboration between the two, starting with the realization of a version of the sculpture ''Tête de femme'' in gravel and concrete in 1958. Over the next 15 years Nesjar and Picasso created more than 30 sculptures together. Examples of their work can be found on the campuses of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

and the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, as well as in public spaces in Norway, France, Spain and Israel among other nations. Pablo Picasso created three concrete sculptures titled:

Figure découpée Figure découpée or L'oiseau (1963, 1964, 1965) is an abstract sculpture by Pablo Picasso: there are a total of three Figure découpée sculptures. There is one located in Vondelpark NL, another on the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Tech ...

. Picasso learned the art process from Nesjar. First a wooden frame was constructed and filled with dark rock materials and then covered with concrete. The surface of the concrete was then sandblasted following a template and the blasted away material revealed the dark material in the lines on the surface. Nesjar died in Oslo on 23 May 2015 at the age of 94.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nesjar, Carl 1920 births 2015 deaths People from Larvik Norwegian artists Norwegian male artists

Life and career

See also

References