Hans Dahl — Artworks

Hans Dahl (1849–1937) was a Norwegian painter, born in Granvin in Hardanger, best known for landscapes of the Norwegian fjords. He trained as an army officer and held the rank of lieutenant in the Bergen brigade until 1874. He studied painting in Karlsruhe under Hans Gude and then at the Düsseldorf Academy, and is counted among the painters of the Düsseldorf school and of Norwegian romanticism. His first exhibition took place in Düsseldorf in 1876. He lived there until 1888 and then mostly in Berlin until 1919. His typical pictures show fjords and mountain scenery with farm people and sailing boats, and he painted many views of the Sognefjord. In 1893 he built a summer house, Villa Strandheim, in Balestrand, and he returned to Norway after the First World War. Kaiser Wilhelm II was among his patrons and gave him the title of professor in 1910. Dahl was made a Knight of the Order of St. Olav in 1902. He died in Balestrand in July 1937, aged 88. His son Hans Andreas Dahl was also a painter.