The Queen to exhibit own works of art to fund scholarship for young artists

In an interview with Fædrelandsvennen (also published in Aftenposten today) the Queen announces that her own works of art will be exhibited for the first time. The Queen says that she has long wanted to establish a scholarship for young artists, but has not had the funds needed to do so. In cooperation with the artists Kjell Nupen and Ørnulf Opdahl she is currently working on transforming photos from a journey to Svalbard in 2006 into graphic prints and a series of 24 of them, titled “Tre reiser, tre landskap” (“Three journeys, three landscapes”) will be exhibited at Dunkers kulturhus in Helsingborg this autumn and at Henie Onstad Art Centre in Bærum outside Oslo next summer.
There will be fifty copies of the series, each consisting of a portfolio containing eight prints by the Queen, eight by Nupen and eight by Opdahl, and the proceeds from the sale will in its entirety go towards the new foundation “Her Majesty Queen Sonja’s Scholarship for Artists”, which every second year will award a scholarship to a young graphic artist from one of the Nordic countries. Most of the fifty portfolios have already been sold, assuring the foundation of a capital stock of more than 5 million NOK. The first scholarship will be awarded on 14 June 2012 in connection with the opening of the exhibition at Henie Onstad Art Centre.
The Queen, whose passion for contemporary art goes a long way back, has a significant private art collection, which was exhibited at Henie Onstad when the King and Queen moved from Skaugum to the Royal Palace in the summer of 2001. On the occasion of the Queen’s 75th birthday next summer Henie Onstad will also host another exhibition with works from her private collection.