Exhibition shows a selection of the Henie Onstad collection with an emphasis on surrealism, CoBrA art and post-war avant-garde art. Several of the works have been collected by Sonja Henie and Niels Onstad themselves, such as the painting Femme assise dans un fauteuil (Woman sitting in an armchair), painted in 1941 by Pablo Picasso. The work was bought by Henie in 1958 in New York, and it is a cornerstone of the Henie Onstad collection.
The oldest artists in the collection, such as Juan Gris, laid the foundation for the younger artists Henie and Onstad together. Among younger art, the couple concentrated on Nordic expressionism, as in the influential European artist collective CoBrA (1949–1952) and artists such as Asger Jorn. Henie bought seven pictures of Jorn.
When it was established in 1961, Sonja Henie and Niels Onstad’s foundations had approximately 100 paintings. When the Henie Onstad Art Center opened its doors in 1968, the collection had increased by a further 100 pictures. During the more than 50 years that the art center has existed, the collection has continued to grow and branch out in different directions.
