Up and out of the National Gallery

Oslo.National Gallery.Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB scanpix

An over 130 year old museum thanks its old home. Now 100,000 works of art will be moved from the venerable National Gallery building in Oslo to its new building at Aker Brygge.

Ever since 1882, the state has shown art in that building, which is now to be emptied.

  • “A total of over 100,000 works of art will be moved. It’s a bit of a job. There is talk of fragile paperwork, paintings, glass and heavy sculptures that weigh several tons. So this won’t be no normal relocation where you pack clothes and books into cardboard boxes and drive off,” says Communications Director Eirik Kydland at the National Museum to NTB.

He points out that security levels are also high, as many of the works are worth hundreds of millions of kroner. The best known is perhaps the National Gallery’s version of Edvard Munch’s “Scream”, but the museum also houses a number of other Munch works, paintings by well-known international artists, as well as Norwegian national treasures such as “The Bride in Hardanger” and “Winter night in Rondane”.

During 2019, work began on moving the paintings into the new building at Vestbanehallen near Aker Brygge. The building, which opens in 2020, receives 13,000 square meters of exhibition space and 90 exhibition halls.

The National Gallery is part of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, and the art collection thus derives from, among other things, contemporary art and the industrial art museum.

Although an important era is facing the National Gallery building on Universitetsgata, it will still be used to showcase art.

  • The government has decided that the building will still be part of the National Museum, which we are very pleased with. We are now joining forces with the Savings Bank Foundation DNB in a preliminary project to find out how the use will be, says Kydland.

The last day of opening at the National Gallery was Sunday 13 January.

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today

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