The children of Olden in Nordfjoreid always looked forward to springtime. As the snow retracted to the mountaintops and gave way for green fields and yellow flowers, the children knew that clothes and candy were on the way. The Singers were returning from their winter home in Holland.
Although Anna and William Henry Singer found the Norwegian winter too harsh and chose to spend it in the somewhat more temperate climate of the Netherlands, they always returned to Olden to enjoy summer in the immediate vicinity of the Jostedal glacier.
“They always brought presents to the children,” says Anna Spencer Vangberg, who lives in Olden. Her mother worked for the Singers for 12 years and chose to name her daughter after the generous American.
“Everybody here still knows about the Singers,” Ms. Vangberg says. “They gave a lot to the community.”
In addition to bringing gifts for the children every spring and Christmas, the Singers funded a hopital in Nordfjoreid as well as a road to the neighboring town of Innvik.
Perhaps it was a way to repay the land that had provided William Henry Singer with inspiration since he fist set foot in Norway in 1903. The painter from Allgheny (now Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania was one of a generation of American artists who traveled to Europe at the beginning of the 20th century to seek inspiration. He was one of the few that became so inspired that he never returned.
Today, Singer is among the most famous American painters of the first half of the last century. His artwork is featured in three main galleries, all founded by his wife Anna after his death: The Singer Room in the Washignton Country Museum of Fine Arts in Hagerstown, Maryland, the Singer Museum in Laren, Holland and the Singer Collection in the Vestlandske Kunstindustrimuseum, aka Permanenten, in Bergen, Norway.
Jean Woods was the Executive Director of the Washington County Museum for 21 years until she retired last year. Now she wants to travel to Norway to preserve the fourth place where Singer is prominently displayed: The Singer home in Olden, commonly known as Singerheimen.
“There is renewed interest in a lot of the artists that died in the 1930s and 1940s,” she says. “I guess it has something to do with the fact that many of their paintings are being placed on the market by grandchildren who have inherited them and now want to sell them.”
She senses that Singer will be among the painters that will experience a kind of renaissance in the coming years. Before that happens, Ms. Woods wants to make sure that the paintings, documents and memorabilia that can be found in the Singerheimen are properly registered, indexed and stored.
“I estimate that there are over 100 paintings. About 65 are by William Henry Singer, Jr.”
Singerheimen was testamented away by Mrs. Singer when she died in 1962. The place was originally intended as a place to rest for nurses from the hospital in Nordfjoreid.
“The artwork needs to be documented,” she says.
Forces have now been put in motion by the Norwegian Embassy in Washington and cultural institutions in Norway to make sure that Jean Woods will be able to travel to Olden in order to document the art collection at Singerheimen.
“This is too important to ignore,” says Bendik Rugaas, a former cabinet member in Norway who now works as the counselor for cultural affairs at the Embassy.
“We’ll get Ms. Woods to Olden,” he states.
The Singers bought an estimated 20,000 pieces of art during the 40 years they spent in Europe after Mr. Singer’s father had sent them to Paris for inspiration in 1901. The artwork ranged from Oriental jade pieces to baroque Italian furniture to bronze busts by Rodin to impressionist paintings by fellow American expats.
William Henry Singer came from a prosperous family in Pennsylvania. This enabled the couple to help struggling artist friends by offering to let them stay for moths at a time in their homes. They also purchased their friends’ artwork. One such friend was Willard Metcalf, who did a large portrait of the couple which is now on display in Permanenten in Bergen.
Singer was introduced to Norway by a Norwegian painter who had emigrated to the United States. Martin Borgord came from Gausdal and became Singer’s mentor in the early years of the 20th century. The two artists both lived in Laren in Holland, but Singer never took to the landscape in Holland. When he saw Olden in 1908, he became so spellbound by the rugged beauty of the area that he returned again and again. A hunting cabin he built in 1909 in Tydal, north of Olden, gave way in 1921 to Dalheim, now Singerheimen.
Until they built their dream home among the mountains and fjords, the Singers spent their summers at the hotel in Olden, which Singer had expanded so that he could paint there. During the first World War, the Singers lived all year at the hotel since their home in Holland was confiscated by German soldiers.
It wasn’t until after Dalheim was built that Singer started producing what is now considered his best work.
“To Singer,” Jean Woods writes in a biography of the artist, “the fascinating Norwegian wilderness was an unending muse — rich in form color and light, which provided an endless variety of beauty for his paintings.”
“The special light reflected in high latitudes of Norway and the winter stillness,” she continues, “inspired Singer, just as the sense of place is evident in the music of Edvard Grieg and the writing of Henrik Ibsen.”
Singer painted in a post-impressionistic style that had long since gone out of fashion in the 1920s. His style captured sunlight and shadow of the glaciers, the sparkling water and the snow-laden fields. By developing a special technique that involved painting directly onto an unprepared canvas, he achieved an almost pastel-like effect that became his trademark. He could work very quickly, and was able to produce a painting in a day or two.
Soon, his paintings will appear in a new exhibit in Holland.
“It’s a good time to buy Singer now,” says Woods. “The prices will rise significantly because of the show.”