NORDENBERG, Bengt

Swedish painter. Following a poor childhood he was educated as an artisan painter. In 1843 he enrolled at the art academy in Stockholm but had to break off his studies prematurely for lack of money. From an early age, Nordenberg had made up his mind to create a national painting depicting the lives of Swedish country people. His encounter with Adolph Tidemand’s pictures of Norwegian rural life, executed in Düsseldorf, inspired him to make his way to Düsseldorf in 1851. There he became a student of Ferdinand Theodor Hildebrandt (1804-74). He also assisted Tidemand and travelled with him to Norway and Sweden in 1852.

In 1856 Nordenberg went to Paris, where he was apprenticed to Thomas Couture, and then on to Rome; because of Nordenberg’s nationalistic disposition these journeys had little influence on his art. He settled in Düsseldorf but made a number of journeys to Sweden during the 1860s.