Presenting a Faithful Likeness: The Sculptures of Sigvald Asbjørnsen
By Laurann Gilbertson, Vesterheim’s Chief Curator
From a young age, Sigvald Asbjørnsen showed artistic talent. He wanted to be a sculptor rather than follow his father into the family business. Although it would often be a challenge, he managed to make his living as an artist. Today Sigvald Asbjørnsen is best remembered in Chicago for a statue of Leif Erickson. Yet his legacy as a talented sculptor includes twenty-one public monuments and memorials, more than 50 portraits (busts, reliefs, statues), and countless interpretive works. Twenty-three of his artworks are showcased at Vesterheim in the exhibition Sigvald Asbjørnsen, Sculptor, through November 4, 2012. Sigvald Heierman Asbjørnsen was born in Oslo, Norway, on October 19, 1867, the second of five children of Anne Malene Svendsdatter and Asbjørn Gulbrand Asbjørnsen. His father, a master tailor, wanted his sons to join him making military uniforms, but Sigvald refused. In his spare time, Sigvald practiced drawing and modeling. He sculpted a bust of King Oscar II, which was displayed in the window of a storefront on Karl Johansgate, the main street leading out from the palace. The king saw the bust and invited sixteen-year-old Sigvald for an interview. Sigvald then received a four-year scholarship at the Royal Academy, where he studied with sculptors Mathias Skeibrok and Brynjulf Bergslien.
Leif Erikson Monument, bronze on granite boulder, 1901. Humboldt Park, Chicago, Illinois. Although there was criticism that Asbjørnsen’s depiction was not as robust as some had imagined the Norwegian explorer, the Leif Erikson Monument Association was in full approval. More than 5,000 people attended the unveiling of the nine-foot-tall figure in 1901. In 1950 the monument was rededicated in a new location within the park so that “it could be seen by many more people and thus publicize to a greater extent the discovery of America by Leif Eriksson.” Sigvald Asbjørnsen, then 82 years old, attended the event. This statue was, and remains, his best-known work.
Photo: Helen M. Heitmann.
Asbjørnsen participated in Høstutstilling, an annual national exhibition of contemporary art, for the first time in 1884 with a portrait bust. He exhibited again in 1888, and for the next three years. Among his works were busts of Ole Jacob Broch (mathematician), Henrik Klausen (actor), Agathe Backer-Grøndahl (pianist, composer), Erika Nissen (pianist), and his father. At the request of city officials, he also created several outdoor snow figures, which were a winter tradition in Oslo.
In 1891 he created a snow sculpture of explorer Fridtjof Nansen, which brought him a nomination for a scholarship. He was considered the top contender, but the committee decided that the scholarship had been given to too many sculptors, so they selected an actress instead. Asbjørnsen was crushed. He felt his work would not receive the attention it deserved in Norway, so in 1892, at the age of 24, he decided to leave for America.
Asbjørnsen bought passage on the Hekla and left Oslo alone on August 4. He arrived at Ellis Island in New York harbor two weeks later. He had listed his occupation as billedhugger, sculptor, and his destination as Ishpeming on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Sigvald Asbjørnsen selected the Upper Peninsula of Michigan because his friend and future brother-in-law, Peter Johan Wickman Stuhr, lived there. Asbjørnsen kept a studio in the building that housed Superior Posten, a Swedish-language newspaper in Ishpeming. He made busts of President Grover Cleveland and James G. Blaine, a former Senator from Maine and U.S. Secretary of State. He also took commissions from wealthy Michigan families. In addition to busts for hotelier
William Janzen, he worked for entrepreneur Fredrik Braastad of Ishpeming and land developer J. M. Longyear of Marquette.
Margrethe Stuhr, Asbjørnsen’s fiancé, arrived in Ishpeming in November 1892. The couple married four months later at the home of Peter and Olga Stuhr. Most likely lured by economic opportunity, the Asbjørnsens and Stuhrs left for Chicago.
By mid-July 1893, Sigvald and Margrethe Asbjørnsen were settled on the Near North Side of Chicago. Sigvald’s first job is believed to have been at the World’s Columbian Exposition, making decorations on buildings as an assistant to Danish sculptor Carl Rohl-Smith. Asbjørnsen quickly restarted his own creative work with busts of Magnus Andersen, who sailed the Gokstad-replica Viking from Norway for the exposition, and Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison, who was murdered in 1893 during his fifth term in office.
The Asbjørnsen family expanded with the births of son Leif (who later changed his name to Lafe Asbiornsen) in 1894, daughter Borghild in 1895, and daughter Helen in 1897.
Asbjørnsen competed for and received major commissions, almost one a year, from 1895 to 1910 beginning with a sculpture of Benjamin Franklin for Lincoln Park in Chicago. Franklin was followed by memorials to General William Tecumseh Sherman in Washington, D.C. (1898), Norwegian explorer Leif Erikson in Chicago (1901), politician William Robert Moore in Memphis, Tennessee (1900), North American explorer Louis Joliet in Joliet, Illinois (1903),
William Janzen Bust, plaster, 1892. Marquette Regional History Center, Marquette, Michigan. Eight-year-old William Janzen was the son of German immigrants to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He became a mine engineer and operator of the Superior Rock Product Company.
Norwegian writer Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson in Fargo, North Dakota (1904), and Naval hero John Monaghan in Spokane, Washington (1906). There were also Civil War monuments for Chattanooga, Tennessee (1898), Fayetteville, North Carolina (1902), Decatur, Illinois (1904), Andersonville, Georgia (1905), and Madison, Indiana (1907).
In 1909, Asbjørnsen sculpted a life-size “Indian Boy.” At the insistence of well-known sculptor Loredo Taft, the city of Chicago purchased a bronze casting of the boy, which was the city’s first public art purchase. The next year, the city installed the sculpture in a stream in Buena Park. The park, located at Buena and Kenmore Avenues in Uptown Chicago, was adjacent to a busy elevated train station. Unfortunately in about 1939, the sculpture disappeared from the park.
Perhaps the most unusual monument was commissioned by Richard D. Whitehead, founder of the Wisconsin Humane Society. Asbjørnsen sculpted a relief plaque of a horse and dog for the front of a granite horsewatering trough in remembrance of Whitehead’s “Faithful Friends,” his horse, dogs, cats, and birds. The trough was installed near a popular farmer’s market on the Milwaukee’s south side, at the intersection of South 16th, West Bow, and South Pearl Streets. As the last remaining watering trough, the city awarded it landmark status in 1964. The trough has since been converted to a fountain.
Although his work would be prominent and public, Abjørnsen was often paid only small sums for the finished sculptures. Rarely did this payment cover all his time to create models for committees, make adjustments to the designs, sculpt full-size figures, and oversee casting into bronze. He could supplement this money with
small commissions for portrait busts and the sale of plaster copies, for example, of the Carter Harrison bust. Margrethe Asbjørnsen found it difficult to live off Sigvald’s unpredictable income. Family members recall that this tension over money followed the couple throughout their lives.
During the 1920s, Asbjørnsen continued to receive commissions for public works, though typically for smaller memorials, such as bronze portraits of biochemist Max Henius for a park in his native Denmark and of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen for San Francisco, California.
Roald Amundsen may have been Asbjørnsen’s favorite subject. In addition to the plaque for the monument, Asbjørnsen sculpted at least two seated figures and two portrait busts of the explorer. Asbjørnsen sent photos of one of the busts to diplomat Fredrik Herman Gade. Gade replied that “the bust is extremely good and very strikingly portrays the subject. It is, in fact, the best reproduction of my friend’s head that I have seen up to date.” Asbjørnsen’s sculptures were consistently praised for the naturalness of the figures. Portrait works were further praised for having captured the spirit and likeness of the individuals.
A new opportunity arose for Asbjørnsen to promote and sell his work. The Chicago Norske Klub, a cultural organization founded in 1911, began offering juried exhibitions for Chicago artists. Although oils and other paintings were most popular with the artists and jurors, sculpture was included. Between 1920 and 1930, Asbjørnsen had 45 works accepted for the shows. Some of the works were current projects, like portraits, busts, or reliefs. Asbjørnsen began creating small and interpretive works, such as “First Sorrow,” “Nocturne,” “Just Arrived,” and “Passion Enleashed.”
Sigvald Asbjørnsen in Oslo, about 1891. The work in front of him is probably a model for a snow figure. Vesterheim Archives—Asbjørnsen Collection.
