French River Landscapes

Frits Thaulow was a Norwegian impressionist painter and engraver. Originally wanting to become a marine painter, he studied at the art academy in Copenhagen (1870-73) as well as with the Danish marine specialist C.F. Sorensen (1818-79). He also became an expert at painting slow-flowing rivers and complex reflections in water, particularly during the autumn and winter stay beside the Simoa River at Modum in 1883, when he produced such paintings as “winter at Simoa”

During the 1880s he was prominent in establishing more progressive artists’ associations and exhibition societies in Norway and was regarded as the leading Norwegian artist of the period. He decided to move to France in 1892, living at Camiers, Etaples and Montreuil as well as Paris (1892-94, 1898-1906) and Dieppe (1894-1898). He painted about 50 pictures a year, most of them rather small. A large number of these pictures were river scenes of great virtuosity, but he also rendered poetic nocturnes, townscapes, harbor scenes, quaint bridges and even marines. Thaulow was essentially a painter working within the framework of Realism and Impressionism.