Pushwagner
Pushwagner, also known as Hariton Pushwagner, was the artist name of Terje Brofos (1940 to 2018), a Norwegian visual artist from Oslo. His drawings, paintings and prints turn metropolitan routines, consumption and control into colourful entertainment and unsettling social criticism.
From art education to a distinctive visual world
He studied at the National College of Art and Design from 1958 to 1961 and the National Academy of Fine Arts from 1963 to 1966. Meeting the writer Axel Jensen in 1968 became important to his development. Precise, comic-like lines arrange rows of almost identical people, cars and buildings. Repetition expresses a society where individuals become parts of a larger system.
Soft City and Family Man
The graphic novel Soft City, developed from the late 1960s into the 1970s, follows a couple and their child through a controlled urban day. Repeated figures and buildings make page composition part of the narrative.
In 2012, MK Gallery presented A Day in the Life of Family Man (1980) as 34 pink silkscreen prints. The number 34 concerns the series' images, not each print's edition. A page from Soft City and a separate print are also different types of object.
Apocalypse and the densely worked surface
In the painting frieze Apokalypse, the social criticism darkens. Industry, war and robotic suited men form a detailed system of power and destruction. Jobkill belongs to this group. The clear graphic language should not obscure the distinction between a painstakingly developed painting and later printed reproductions.
The artist archive describes a Jobkill measuring 170 × 250 cm as ink and acrylic on paper mounted on furniture board. This composite support matters: the work should not simply be described as oil on canvas. Nor should this material information be applied to every work sharing the title.
Paintings, screenprints and digital graphics
The archive lists High Society from 2008 both as oil on canvas, 180 × 254 cm, and digital graphics, 61 × 84 cm. A subject can therefore exist in different materials and sizes. Its date is not necessarily the printing date of a particular example.
Galleri Pushwagner also describes screenprints, hand-coloured prints and D.G.A. prints. Record the documented technique of the sheet. Digital production alone proves neither an unauthorised reproduction nor a particular edition or autograph signature. Describe a colour variation or hand-colouring separately where confirmed.
Documentation for buying and selling
For prints, record title, printing technique, image and sheet dimensions, numbering, signature and any publisher. A number alone does not account for all proofs or other editions. Distinguish pencil or pen signatures from signatures printed with the image. A poster or book publication does not become a separate original print because the image is identical.
Keep purchase documents and photograph the reverse before reframing. For paper, consider fading, discolouration, moisture and adhesive residues; for hand-colouring, also examine the colour layer. The biography and a familiar Pushwagner composition do not authenticate an individual object.
Read more about artist signatures, provenance and ownership history.
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Contact OBA about selling and assessment (Norwegian page).
