Images of a Nordic Drama

A persistent art collector faces unexpected resistance while championing the work of an unknown Norwegian artist after finding a cache of paintings in a barn Despite success abroad the undiscovered work of Aksel Waldemar Johannessen an admired contemporary of Edvard Munch takes nearly three decades to launch The painters oil depictions of prostitutes and drunks living in miserable poverty offend the bourgeois aesthetics of Norways art establishment and challenge the canon to the point of sabotaging his rediscovery Will rejection by the curatorial staff at the National Museum and gatekeepers of the Munch Museum diminish Johannessens work