Niels Onstad (26 March 1909 – 17 June 1978) was a Norwegian shipowner and art collector.

Biography

Niels Onstad was born in

Kristiania 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 of ...

(now Oslo), Norway. Onstad played football for

SFK Lyn Ski- og Fotballklubben Lyn (lit. "Ski and Football Club Lightning") is a Norwegian alliance sports club from Nordre Aker, Oslo. It has two sections; for association football and Nordic skiing. Until 2010 they had a third section, for top-level a ...

in his younger days. He played as defender on the club's first-team, including a feature in the 1928 Norwegian Football Cup final. In 1935, together with his brother Haakon Onstad (1901-1980), he started the shipping company, Niels Onstad Tank Rederi A / S, which later was named Niels Onstads Tankrederi with headquarters in Oslo. Haakon Onstad had entered ship owning in 1932 with the ''Pan Gothia'' but because of the uncertain financial times the ship was given Swedish registry under Rederi A/B Pagota. In 1940, during the

Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany The occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany during the Second World War began on 9 April 1940 after Operation Weserübung. Conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on 10 June 1940, and Nazi Germany controlled Norway until the ...

, Niels Onstad moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

where he worked for the Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission (''

Nortraship The Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission (Nortraship) was established in London in April 1940 to administer the Norwegian merchant fleet outside German-controlled areas. Nortraship operated some 1,000 vessels and was the largest shipping company ...

''). Haakon Onstad relocated to Kungsbacka, Sweden, where he formed Rederi A/B Kungsoil and Rederi A/B Monacus. In 1956, Niels Onstad married

Sonja Henie Sonja Henie (8 April 1912 – 12 October 1969) was a Norway, Norwegian figure skating, figure skater and film star. She was a three-time List of Olympic medalists in figure skating, Olympic champion (Figure skating at the 1928 Winter Olympics, ...

. Onstad, whose mother had been a painter, had many contacts in the Norwegian art world, including

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...

. Together, Onstad and Henie established the

Henie-Onstad Art Centre The Henie Onstad Kunstsenter is an art museum located at Høvikodden in Bærum municipality in Viken county, Norway. It is situated on a headland jutting into the Oslofjord, approximately southwest of Oslo. History The artcentre was founded ...

(''Henie Onstad Kunstsenter'') at Høvikodden in

Bærum Bærum () is a municipality in the Greater Oslo Region in Norway that forms an affluent suburb of Oslo on the west coast of the city. Bærum is Norway's fifth largest municipality with a population of 128,760 (2021). It is part of the electoral ...

southwest of Oslo. The ship Susanne Onstad was featured in the movie

King Kong King Kong is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. He has been dubbed The Eighth Wonder of the World, a phrase commonly used within the franchise. His first appearance was in the novelizat ...

from 1976. The Susanne Onstad was the oil tanker that brought King Kong from

Skull Island Skull Island is the name most often used to describe a fictional island that first appeared in the 1933 film ''King Kong'' and later appearing in its sequels, the three remakes, and any other King Kong-based media. It is the home of the epony ...

to the USA.

Biography

References

Related reading