Famous People

So, Who Was This Sonja Henie, Anyway?

Norwegians young and old know the story of one of their most legendary public figures, Sonja Henie (1912-69). In America, however, only the older generation might be able to identify this former figure skater and movie actress who won gold medals for figure skating at the 1928, 1932, and 1936 Winter Olympics.

Henie was born in Oslo, the daughter of a furrier. Having learned skating and dancing as a child, she became the youngest Olympic skating champion when she won her first gold medal at age 15. She became a professional in 1936 on her tour of the United States, performing in ice shows as late as the 1950s. The bright-eyed, bubbly blonde managed to parlay her championships into an effervescent but short motion-picture career.

20th Century Fox ordered writers to tailor film properties for her, to keep the comedy and romance light, and to get her on those skates as much as possible. Often she was teamed with top-rate stars, such as Ray Milland and Robert Cummings in Everything Happens at Night in 1939, or Don Ameche, Ethel Merman, and Cesar Romero in the 1938 film Happy Landing. The year 1939 also saw her teamed opposite Rudy Valee and Tyrone Power in Second Fiddle. Only Shirley Temple and Clark Gable outranked her at the box office that year.

In 1940, when Hitler invaded Norway, she published her autobiography, Wings on My Feet, which included a picture of her receiving congratulations from Hitler, surrounded by Nazi officials at the 1936 Olympics. The associations with the Nazis tarnished her reputation during the war, but the outcry against her died down after the war.

In 1960 Henie retired with her third husband, Niels Onstad, a wealthy Norwegian businessman and art patron. In 1968 they founded the Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter near Oslo, as a showcase for Henie's extensive collection of modern art. The next year, at the relatively early age of 57, Norway's most famous daughter died. She was aboard an aircraft carrying her from Paris to Oslo for medical treatment. At the time of her death, she was 1 of the 10 wealthiest women on earth.

The Man Behind The Scream

Scandinavia's greatest artist, Edvard Munch (1863-1944), was a pioneer in the expressionist movement. The Scream, painted in 1893, is his best-known painting. There are four known versions of this painting, one of which was stolen from the Munch Museum in August of 2004. The painting, along with another Munch masterpiece, Madonna, were recovered by Norwegian police in August of 2006 and returned to the museum. He grew up in Oslo (then called Christiania) and was often ill. Early memories of illness, death, and grief in his family had a tremendous impact on his later works. His father's death may have contributed to the loneliness and melancholy of one of his most famous works, Night (1890).

By the early 1890s, Munch had achieved fame (though slight in comparison with his renown today). He was at the center of a succés de scandale in Munich in 1892 when his art was interpreted as "anarchistic provocation."

Munch went to Berlin to escape, entering a world of literati, artists, and intellectuals. He met August Strindberg and they discussed the philosophy of Nietzsche, symbolism, psychology, and occultism. The discussions clearly influenced his work. His growing outlook was revealed to the world in an 1893 show in Berlin, where several paintings had death as their theme. His Death in a Sickroom particularly created quite a stir.

In 1896 Munch moved to Paris, where he made exquisite color lithographs and his first woodcuts. By the turn of the 20th century, he was painting in a larger format and incorporating some of the Art Nouveau aesthetics of the time. Red Virginia Creeper and Melancholy reflect the new influences. Prominent people also asked Munch to paint their portraits, and he obliged. His 1904 group portrait of Dr. Linde's sons is a masterpiece of modern portraiture.

A nervous disorder soon sent him to a sanitarium, and he had a turbulent love affair with a wealthy bohemian nicknamed "Tulla." The affair ended in 1902 when a revolver permanently injured a finger on Munch's left hand. He became obsessed with the shooting incident and poured out his contempt for Tulla in such works as Death of Murat (1907). Munch also became increasingly alcoholic, and in 1906 he painted Self-Portrait with a Bottle of Wine.

From 1909 until his death, Munch lived in Norway. In his later years he retreated into isolation, surrounded only by his paintings, which he called "my children." The older Munch placed more emphasis on the monumental and the picturesque, as in landscapes or people in harmony with nature.

In 1940 he decided to leave his huge collection of paintings to the city of Oslo upon his death. Today the Edvard Munch Museum provides the best introduction to this strange and enigmatic artist.