Nils Aas

Nils Sigurd Aas (born April 21, 1933 in Inderøy , Nord-Trøndelag , † February 10, 2004 in Oslo ) was a Norwegian sculptor , draftsman and graphic artist .

life and work

Nils Aas came from a prominent family of carpenters. He learned handicrafts in the furniture workshop of his father Ivar Aas (1904–1988). Then from 1954 to 1958 he attended the state craft and art industry school in Oslo to train as a commercial graphic artist. 1958–59 he was a student of the sculptor Nils Erik Flakstad . In the Norwegian capital he then continued to study sculpture for three years from 1959 at the art academy with the Danish-born Norwegian sculptor Per Palle Storm . From 1957 to 1963 he worked for the newspaper Arbeiderbladet , for which he worked as a draftsman. He also worked as an assistant at Arnold Haukeland from 1962 to 1964 . Under his influence he came to abstract sculpture made of stainless steel, wire and wood. At the ceremonial presentation of the Bokhandler Prize for Literature, the winners receive a bronze statue named Takk for boken (“Day of the Book”), which he created.

Haakon VII statue on June 7th, Oslo

When he was a school child, Aas created his first sculpture in Inderøy, an equestrian monument in the snow. From 1963 he created portrait busts, including bronze busts of the author Johan Falkberget (1963, Deichmanske bibliotek , Oslo), the former leader of the Norwegian labor movement Martin Tranmæl (1963), the author Johan Borgen (1965, National Gallery, Oslo) and the poet Kristofer Uppdal ( 1967, Steinkjer ). Aas' first public project was the abstract, 4 m high steel figure Fugl ("Vogel"; 1966–67), which he positioned outside the Symra cinema in Lambertseter, Oslo. In 1967 he won the competition for the monument to the Norwegian King Haakon VII, who had died ten years earlier . It was erected on June 7th ("June 7th Square") in Oslo and unveiled in 1972. This work, classified at the time as the most important Norwegian monument of the post-war period, which made Aas famous and ranked it among the leading sculptors in Norway, is a bronze statue about 4.5 m high including the base, Haakon VII in a long coat and in the shows his left hand holding an officer's cap in front of his chest. The work reveals the influence of Alberto Giacometti on carrion.

In 1971 Aas' sculpture Sjømerke (“Beacon”) was created, a 3.5 m high steel bird erected on Mølleråsen north of Sandefjord , which rises on a 10 m high concrete column. The next year, 1972, the artist received the Oslo City Prize for Culture. In 1976 he built his granite monument in Oslo of the Yugoslav partisans who died in Norway during World War II . The hall in the Council of Ministers in the euro Palais in Strasbourg located, 10-ton, 16.5 m wide and 5 m high wall sculpture Nordisk Lys ( "Northern Lights") led carrion in the years 1976 to 1978 in laminated spruce wood. In 1981 his 3.6 m high granite monument Henrik Ibsen was unveiled in the Teaterparken in Bergen . Aas also created a bronze statue of Charlie Chaplin in front of the Colosseum cinema in Oslo in 1975 , a statue of the Norwegian long-distance runner Grete Waitz in front of the Bislett Stadium in Oslo in 1984 and a sculpture of Marilyn Monroe in Haugesund in 1994 .

In 1990 Aas was made a Knight of the Order of Saint Olav . He was also known internationally for his commemorative medallions. In 1994 he designed two Norwegian coins, the 10- kroner and the 20-kroner coin. The artist, who was married to the painter Tonje Strøm (1937–2010) in his first marriage from 1959 to 1978 and in his second marriage from 1996 to Christine Reintz (* 1957), died on February 10, 2004 at the age of 70 in Oslo.

literature

• Carrion, Nils . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 1, Seemann, Leipzig 1983, ISBN 3-598-22741-8 , p. 22.
• Ingeborg Wikborg: Aas, Nils (Sigurd) . In: Grove Dictionary of Art , 1996, Vol. 1, p. 12.

supporting documents

1. ↑ Bokhandlerprisen , bokhandlerfüreningen.no from August 16, 2019, accessed August 28, 2019 (Norwegian)