Thomas Fearnley

Thomas Fearnley was born on December 27, 1802, in Frederikshald (Halden) to a merchant family of English descent. After studying at the art academies in Copenhagen and Stockholm, he became the star pupil of Johan Christian Dahl in Dresden in 1829.

Fearnley traveled extensively across Norway, Switzerland, and Italy, painting grand romantic landscapes infused with dramatic light and monumental scale. His iconic 1839 canvas Slindebirken (The Slinde Birch) and his dynamic depictions of raging cataracts such as Labrofossen ved Kongsberg (1837) helped establish the heroic visual identity of Norway. He died suddenly of typhoid fever in Munich at only thirty-nine.