Håkon Bleken
Håkon Bleken: charcoal, collage and human experience
Håkon Bleken (1929 to 2025) was a Norwegian visual artist from Trondheim. He died on 21 January 2025. Painting, charcoal drawing, collage, prints and church commissions formed a practice in which personal experience met literature and social history. His pictures can be formally accomplished yet unsettling, repeatedly questioning human vulnerability.
From formal analysis to figures and narratives
Bleken studied in Trondheim and at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, also receiving printmaking instruction from Chrix Dahl. From 1960 to 1972 he was associated with the Institute of Form and Colour at NTH. With colleagues in Gruppe 5, he explored constructive form and a more lyrical expression. Figures, spaces and narratives gradually became more explicit.
Charcoal drawings were central to his breakthrough in the early 1970s. Fragments of a Dictatorship (Fragmenter av et diktatur) brings together images of anxiety, power and alienation. Nasjonalmuseet's Man Washing His Hands (Mann som toer sine hender), from the series, is dated 1969 and made in charcoal on paper. Its acquisition in 1971 does not make that its creation date.
Photographs beneath the paint
Work with gouache and collage in the 1970s opened new routes back to oil painting. Nasjonalmuseet records Madonna Removes Her Halo I (Madonna tar av seg glorien I) of 1978 as collage and oil on canvas. Photographic fragments and religious subjects bring contemporary events into an older visual language. Photographs form part of the original technique here; they do not turn the entire work into a reproduction.
The Stations of the Cross (Korsveien), made for St Olav's Church in Trondheim in 1975, comprises 15 pictures. Nidaros Cathedral's documentation describes painting over photographic cuttings of war, oppression and suffering. From a distance colour can unify the pictures; closer viewing reveals individual photographs. This tension between whole and detail is central to the series.
Prints, literature and later portraits
Bleken used different printing methods. Kunst på Arbeidsplassen records Nagel's Dream (Nagels drøm) from Mysterier, 1991, as lithography, a sheet from Hedda Gabler, 1991, as screenprint, and an illustration to Dalen Portland, 1990, as etching. His connection with literature thus encompasses particular works in different techniques.
Farewell I (Avskjed I) of 2008 portrays the composer Arne Nordheim in oil on canvas. The museum highlights its deep blue, elevated viewpoint and expressive brushstrokes. It shows how ageing and human closeness continued to inform his later work.
Buying, selling and assessment
Document technique, dimensions, the entire sheet or canvas, reverse, signature, any edition number and ownership history. Distinguish original drawings from print impressions and later reproductions. Pasted photographs require examination in relation to the particular collage. Describe tears, adhesive, mounting, paint loss and restoration specifically. A title, numbering or similar signature alone neither authenticates a work nor establishes edition size.
Read more about lithography, etching, artist signatures, provenance and ownership history.
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