1845 -1932 · Norway, Munich and Paris

Silent interiors, colors constructed by light and figures absorbed in their task make Harriet Backer a pioneer of Norwegian modernity.

Harriet Backer was born in Holmestrand in 1845 into a family where music and the arts occupied an essential place. Accompanying her sister Agathe, a future composer and pianist, she visited European museums very early. As the academies then remained closed to women, her training took place through private lessons in Norway then through Munich, where she learned precise realism with dark tones. In 1878, Backer moved to Paris with his painter friend Kitty Kielland. Contact with French painting clarified his palette and shifted his attention to the relationships between figure, space and light. In 1878, Backer moved to Paris with his painter friend Kitty Kielland. Contact with French painting clarified his palette and shifted his attention to the relationships between figure, space and light. In 1878, Backer moved to Paris with his painter friend Kitty Kielland. Contact with French painting clarified his palette and shifted his attention to the relationships between figure, space and light. Solitude received an honorable mention at the Salon of 1880. From then on, the interior became his main laboratory. In Blue Room, Cold Light, furniture and silhouette build depth through color. The lamp opposes incandescent orange and purple blue around a woman at work. Backer also paints rural churches, peasant houses, workshops and bourgeois living rooms. At home, she also paints rural churches, peasant houses, workshops and bourgeois living rooms. At home, she focused on this research: windows, tables, plants and textiles transform a daily space into luminous balance. Returning to Norway in 1888, she directed a painting school in Kristiania from 1892 to 1910. Nikolai Astrup, Harald Sohlberg and several generations of artists benefited from her open teaching. With Kitty Kielland, she also embodied the conquest of one professional career by women. Died in Oslo in 1932, Backer left a work where each atom of the scene actually seemed to become color. The "Harriet Backer" selection notably compares Chez moi. His reading favors light.

At Harriet Backer, light does not rest on the interior: she builds it, transforms the walls into color and gives the silent figures all their presence.