Harriet Backer. Every Atom is Colour

Harriet Backer (1845–1932) was one of Norways most significant artists. Highly acclaimed for her rich, luminous use of color, Backer created an eminently personal style that blends interior scenes and open-air painting.

Every Atom is Color presents Backer's life, artistic development, and position in society during a time of radical change in women's rights. The exhibition is the most comprehensive presentation of Backer in nearly 30 years and, through a tour initiated by Kode and the National Museum in Oslo, has been showcased at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris (2024–25), the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (2024), and the National Museum (2023) over the past two years.

For the exhibition in Bergen, several new works are included, among them Uvdal Church and Churchyard, acquired by Kode in 2023, and two still lifes discovered after an extensive search.

Through a rich musical program within the exhibition, Backer’s sister, composer and pianist Agathe Backer-Grøndahl (1847–1907), is also highlighted. Music was an essential part of Backer’s artistry, often reflected in her paintings through subject matter and use of color. Over the past year, Kode has been involved in launching Grøndahl’s music through the historic publishing house Edition Peters.

Private spaces

Harriet Backer drew inspiration from the realist movement as well as from the innovations of Impressionism, with free brushstrokes and meticulous attention to variations in light. She is also famous for her tender portraits of rural life and her interest in church interiors.

While Backer's painting evolved greatly in stylistic terms over the course of her long career, she stayed true to a limited number of subjects, and motif studies were an integral part of her work throughout.

She was deeply interested in colour, light, and the interiors she painted. In addition, as a portrait painter, it was important for her to know the people who sat for her. Many of her subjects were friends, whom she painted in familiar surroundings, but she also depicted people from very different social circles.

The exhibition turns to the artist's preferred themes: rustic interiors, paintings of traditional Norwegian churches, landscapes, and her very particular approach to still-life painting.

Role model for a new generation

When seeking to establish herself as an artist, Backer approached the domination of the art world by men as a challenge. In an era when women were not considered to be full citizens in Norway, she broke the boundaries, becoming a key figure in the art scene of her time.

As a champion of women’s rights, she distinguished herself more by what she did than what she said, and many were highly appreciative of the paths she opened in the fields of art and social development.

A member of the board of trustees and the acquisitions committee of the Norwegian National Gallery for twenty years, at the beginning of the 1890s she opened a painting school where she taught some of the most notable artists of the next generation, including Nikolai Astrup, Halfdan Egedius, and Helga Ring Reusch. She received the support of collector Rasmus Meyer, also a great patron of Edvard Munch.

About the exhibition

Harriet Backer. Every Atom is Colour concludes an international tour initiated by the National Museum in Oslo and Kode Bergen Art Museum, organized in collaboration with Nationalmuseum Stockholm and Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

As the first major exhibition dedicated to Backer outside Norway since 1925, it has already been seen by more than 600,000 visitors in Paris, Stockholm and Oslo.

The exhibition is supported by Sparebankstiftelsen DNB, Bergesenstiftelsen, H. Westfal-Larsen and hustru Anna Westfal-Larsens Almennyttige Fond, Yvonne og Bjarne Rieber, and Ragnhild Willumsen Grieg and Per Grieg Jr.

The concert series is supported by H. Westfal-Larsen and hustru Anna Westfal-Larsens Almennyttige Fond and Grieg Foundation.