Elsa Thoresen 1906-1994

Elsa Thoresen was born in Benson, Minnesota, USA.

Died in Seattle, Washington, USA.

Thoresen was a Surrealist painter who lived and worked in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and the USA. Thoresen studied at Statens håndverks- og kunstindustriskole in Oslo 1924 – 1927, at Statens Kunstakademi in Oslo 1927 – 1930 and at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels 1928 – 1929. Thoresen lived in Copenhagen between 1935 – 1944. Escaping the Nazi occupation of Denmark in 1944, Thoresen lived and worked in Stockholm and spent her summers in Halmstad. She moved back to the USA in 1953 where she lived until her death.

Thoresen’s work was shown at the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in Paris in 1938, organized by surrealist theorist André Breton and possibly the movement’s most important poet Paul Éluard. In 1947 she was the only woman in the Danish group at the International Surrealist Exhibition in the Galerie Maeght in Paris.

During the years 1935 – 1953, Thoresen was married to the artist Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen. The couple collaborated on mural projects in Copenhagen, travelled and exhibited together. Spending their summers in Halmstad, they formed close ties to the Halmstad group.

Thoresen’s later paintings became more abstract, drawing the viewer into the quiet intimate smaller format, to take part of what appears to be almost a choreography of movement of shapes.

After her passing, Thoresen’s works have been shown in museum exhibitions in Louisiana, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, COBRA Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Amstelveen, Holland, Artipelag, Stockholm, Musée de Montmartre, Paris and Cascadia Art Museum, Edmonds, WA, USA.