Nicolaus Widerberg’s figure sculpture is timeless whether it is made in bronze, granite, or more recently glass. Predominantly still and monolithic, it unites traditions as diverse as pre-classical Greek and the elongated presences of Giacometti. Sometimes it seems as if in developing a stubbornly private form of neoclassicism Widerberg has insouciantly by-passed a century of modernism and its aftermath. If he has, it is in that spirit that Andre Breton observed in the antique, the metaphysical.
Born in Oslo in 1960, Nicolaus Widerberg is a member of one of the most distinguished artistic families in Norway. Winning the open competition for the Monument to Thor Heyerdahl in 1989 marked a significant turning point in Widerberg’s career. Public commissions have been flowing ever since and Widerberg continues to respond to them positively.
Nicolaus Widerberg’s sculpture exists within a continuum which accommodates Middle Kingdom Egyptian, archaic and Hellenistic art while being unmistakably of today. Nevertheless, his monolithic figural pieces have such a marked kinship with pre-Hellenistic kouroi as to make Athens their spiritual home.
After graduating from the Academy in Oslo, Widerberg continued his studies in France, and in 1984 he travelled to Italy where he worked alongside the jobbing masons of the Cararra quarries and soon learned to identify cut stone by its smell, and gauge its strength and quality. In Italy, he developed an interest in the work of Marino Marini and Mimmo Paladino, important additions to his personal pantheon of artists including Moore, Rodin, Ipousteguy, Picasso and Giacometti.
Predominantly still and monolithic, Widerberg’s work unites traditions as diverse as pre-classical Greek to the elongated presences of Giacometti. Widerberg remains his own man, however, his constant inventiveness yielding some extraordinarily poetic works in bronze, granite, marble, or more recently, glass.
Extract from the exhibition catalogue essay by Mara-Helen Wood.