Odd Nerdrum is an extraordinarily talented painter, born in Norway in 1944. His work may be viewed at the Metropolitan Museum in New York; the San Diego Museum in San Diego, California; the Walker Art Museum, Minneapolis; the Milwaukee Museum of Art, Milwaukee; and the Gothenburg Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden; as well as the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway.

Nerdrum had his first one person gallery exhibition in New York at the Martina Hamilton Gallery in 1983. Miss Hamilton was the worldwide representative for Nerdrum for 15 years.

Nerdrum’s method of painting is an old world discipline of mixing and grinding his own pigments, stretching his canvas and the exclusive use of models. He has been using this method since he was 16 years old.

Odd Nerdrum has an extensive knowledge of art history and an in depth schooling in philosophy of the ages. He is obsessive about his work, his ideas, and his politics. All of which have greatly affected younger painters worldwide.

from www.oddnerdrum.com

Themes is the most comprehensive collection of Odd Nerdrum's works ever published. Its lavish 500 pages are filled with sketches, drawings and studies, along with excellent reproductions of the painter's most important and most recent finished works. A wide selection of close-up details offers the tightest possible view of Nerdrum's brush strokes, which will be of particular interest to students - those who wish to learn his application of old master technique just as they would learn from the work of the old masters themselves. The book is devided into 21 chapters devoted to space, nudes, portraits, and other topics, and presented chronologically within each chapter to show the development of specific motifs over the course of his career. This structure and the wide range of work present new insights into the central themes in Nerdrum's work, and his treatment of them from first sketches to final canvasses. Nerdrum's latest works - dating from the last five years - are presented here for the first time. They complete an unprecedented overview of his oeuvre, a must for everyone interested in the how and why behind this painter. The book opens with a literary review by Bjørn Li, who has followed Nerdrum's work and the debate accompanying it for many years.

The book is published by Forlaget Press and is available in English (ISBN: 9788275472265) and Norwegian (ISBN: 978-82-7547-236-4) with a price of 599 NOK (about $100).

from www.nerdrum.com