John Rolseth
John Rolseth, also recorded as Per John Rolseth, is a Norwegian visual artist born in Trondheim in 1954. His practice includes painting, drawing and printmaking.
Training and an abstract visual language
He studied in Trondheim and at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in England. Norwegian weaving traditions and calligraphy informed his work. In the early 1980s, horizontal bands organised shifting colours; later, these divisions became freer and more organic. His output also includes watercolours and charcoal drawings.
Documented works in different media
The National Museum’s Limboland of 1986 is charcoal and coloured pencil on paper, 121.5 cm high and 152 cm wide. It demonstrates that his drawings could be large: a work on paper need not be a small sketch.
I mitt Hjerte in the same museum is catalogued as a colour lithograph on paper, dated “(1996)”. The museum gives a height of 53 cm, a width of 43.5 cm and an edition of 200. These details concern this particular work and do not establish the editions of other Rolseth prints.
KORO records Et vendepunkt of 1993 as oil on linen canvas, 46 cm high and 40 cm wide. Hvor går vi fra alteret, also dated 1993, is a larger oil painting on linen canvas, 80 cm high and 100 cm wide. The catalogues thus document different materials and substantial variations in scale.
Exhibition history and the use of sources
The archive of Trøndelag Centre for Contemporary Art documents a Rolseth exhibition in 1985. Trondhjems Kunstforening presented his paintings and prints in 2006. These records provide dated reference points rather than a complete account of his career. They should not be used to date an individual work lacking its own documentation.
Identifying a work
A lithograph, a charcoal drawing and an oil painting require different examination, even when their visual language is related. Record title, dimensions, support and inscriptions, distinguishing the image from the full sheet and frame. For prints, investigate numbering and any printer or publisher information for that particular impression. Folds, tears, mounting and earlier repairs are particularly relevant to documenting larger drawings. A title or a similar signature alone does not establish authorship; receipts, labels and a documented ownership history can support further assessment.
Read more about artist signatures, provenance and ownership history.
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View the OBA item listing associated with this artist (Norwegian page).
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