3. Christian Krohg
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Krohg was the son of lawyer and statesman Georg Anton Krohg (1817–73) and the grandson
of Christian Krohg (1777–1828) who was a government minister. Krohg studied law at the University
of Oslo (then Christiania) (1869–73) and was educated in Germany at the Baden School of
Art in Karlsruhe underHans Gude,[1] and later worked in Paris from 1881 to 1882.
Inspired by the ideas of the realists he chose motives primarily from everyday life – often its darker
or socially inferior sides. Particularly well known are his pictures of prostitutes. Prostitution is also
the subject of his novel Albertine (1886), which caused a scandal when first published, and was
confiscated by the police. (See also related painting in the gallery below).
Krohg’s powerful and straightforward style made him one of the leading figures in the transition
from romanticism to naturalism, characteristic of Norwegian art in this period. Through his periodic
residence at Skagen, where he arrived for the first time in 1879, he had great influence
on Anna and Michael Ancher, and provided early support to Edvard Munch.
Krohg was the founding editor of the Bohemian journal, Impressionisten, in 1886. He then became
a journalist in the Oslo newspaper Verdens Gang from 1890 to 1910, where he wrote remarkable
portrait interviews. Later he became a professor director at the The Norwegian Academy of
Arts (Statens Kunstakademi) 1909-1925.
He was married to artist Oda Krohg and was the father of muralist Per Lasson Krohg. There are
notable paintings by Christian Krohg in the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in
Oslo and at Skagens Museum in Denmark.
