Norwegian Exlibris © 2025 by Annika Rockenberger is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Website about Norwegian Exlibris as a Cultural Phenomenon, Art and Collectable. Created by Annika Rockenberger. Posts in chronological order, newest first. For license information, scroll to the bottom of the page.
This time, I did not win the auction. 75 Norwegian Exlibris, in fine condition, were again on auction at Skanfil.no. I saw a couple of doublettes from the last auction (which I won) and decided to cap my bid at 1.500NOK. In the end, I went up to 1.800NOK but realised that I wasn't going to bid over the 1.900NOK another bidder had put out; not for stuff I already had, most likely.
(On a side note: I am interested in a couple of larger woodcut prints of industrial Oslo/Kristiania before the 1930s and I'd rather use my buying power there.)
Anyways, not winning this auction doesn't feel bad: I feel I am getting a good grip on what's out and about in Norway and that someone was willing to bid 1.900NOK means that there is at least one other person who's interested enough in Exlibris to put some money out for it!
About the collections I have, I will give an informal talk soon, on November 4th. The talk is part of the book history lunch seminars which are held occasionally at the University of Oslo. I'm preparing to talk about the Exlibris "boom" during the Occupation and how to get hold of Exlibris in Norway today. I will also accompany my talk with a small pop-up exhibition, where I will show examples of the Nysted Heier collection, some of the Exlibris artist portfolios, and miscellaneous materials that allow a glimpse into a time when there was an active community of collectors, artists, and patrons in Oslo and Norway.
I have also started to digitize the 1974 Norwegian Exlibris Catalogue by Thorbjørn Schyberg, but it's putting up a fight. Ordinary OCR can handle typewritten text from the 1970s - in Norwegian - fairly well, but this is a table without borders and the OCR will not put out a table, but only lines. I could post-process this, but it turned out to have some other issues with line breaks and overflowing columns so I decided to go over to Transkribus to see if an HTR model trained for tables would perform better. It wasn't, but since I can train a model myself, I decided to go for this route and started marking up rows and columns. We will see how labour intensive this will turn out!
The aim with digitising the Exlibris Catalogue is not only searchability, which one currently can only do by owner, not by date, artist, or place or any other kind of information. It will also be the backbone of the database I am going to build. In the meantime, I will continue observing the second hand and antiquarian market for Exlibris and related matters.
I won an auction. As I said before, it's rather seldom that exlibris are for sale or on auction in Norway: they don't seem to be much of a collectable, or collectors are few and far between, and they probably already have many of the Norwegian exlibris. Anyways, I was intrigued as this lot of 66 Norwegian exlibris was auctioned off on Skanfil. The starting price was 300 NOK, not a very high amount, as I thought. It turned out to be more expensive than expected, a nerve-wracking experience (I remember eBay from the old days...). Now I'm the proud owner of the bunch, all of which are in very good condition, including four colour woodcuts by Knut Yran. I'll catalogue them as soon as I have some time available and check them against the Norwegian Ex Libris catalogue. Which I, by the way, finally managed to digitise completely. Dataset to be released sometime in the near future.
The other place I monitor for exlibris is Finn.no, THE second-hand market for stuff (and property) in Norway. I receive notifications every time a new item is listed that contains the words "ex libris" or "exlibris". Usually, it is older books that appear, and in the brief descriptions, the existence of an exlibris (or its remnants on the endpaper) is mentioned. Rarely is there a picture of the actual exlibris, and even more rarely is there any detailed information on the owner or the artist. Understandably, since in the Norwegian second-hand book market on Finn.no, exlibris are considered to reduce the price of an antiquarian book, not raise it.
So far, I have collected a couple of screenshots of the exlibris, but I am not sure how to handle these as a reference. I wonder if there is a way to save the Finn.no listings even after the item is sold or taken off the platform for other reasons. I think it would be a valuable dataset to collect: the exlibris and the book it is in. Even possible to reconstruct a bit of the owners' collections or say something about the provenance of books. Admittedly, I am more than uninterested in most of the books: I will not buy them because they have a certain exlibris in them (well, to be honest, I might, depending on the exlibris...), but I want to somehow keep the reference for my research project on the Norwegian Exlibris. It would be most valuable to be able to say something about the books the owners had (in their collections) and decided to put their exlibris in. Especially for books that were contemporary publications to the exlibris or part of the high literature or literary canon of the time (or the opposite). There are many interesting questions here, and several angles to explore in the data.
And because I cannot shut up talking about exlibris, I have been invited to give a talk about the Norwegian exlibris during this autumn's book history lunch seminar series (date and time upcoming). I will combine it with a mini-exhibition of some of the fine and not-so-fine pieces from my collection. Exciting!
Short answer: It is not. What am I talking about? Well, I monitor the Norwegian second-hand market app Finn.no for exlibris and related items. I conduct a broad search and retrieve a good amount of random older books with exlibris in them, usually without a picture of the exlibris or the owner's name mentioned in the description. The Norwegian second-hand book market and antiquarian market regard exlibris as a quality issue: lowering the book's value. Therefore, the existence of exlibris is mentioned. Still, in itself, it is not regarded as of value and therefore rarely described or depicted.
Anyway: Today, my search retrieved a rare book about exlibris. From the images provided and the copy-and-pasted book description from Amazon (of all places!), it is the 1917 bibliophile edition of Gerhard Gade's "Norwegian Exlibris". This book is no. 2 in a series by The Society of Bookplate Bibliophiles, printed in Boston with the Seaver-Howland Press. The book has only 54 pages, of which more than half are empty verso pages. The book has seven (7!) pages worth of text, whereof one is a short bibliography of Scandinavian exlibris literature, the others contain brief biographical notes on the artists of the 20 plates depicted in the other half of the book. The exlibris are reprinted in black and white, with one exception: an exlibris by Gerhard Munthe, where the owners' initials are printed in red on the otherwise black and white print. The book itself was printed in 300 copies only. It is currently not available on the Norwegian antiquarian market; however, it is kept in several libraries and can be looked at, read in, and not least: downloaded for free from the University of California Library/U.C. Berkeley Library by following the link to the pdf scan).
The significance of this book for the Norwegian exlibris is medium at best; it has only a tiny selection of exlibris, and they are not especially rare either. It is made for the US American bookplate collectors and bibliophiles market of the time, and the information in it has been updated and expanded upon in the younger Norwegian exlibris literature of the first half of the 20th century, namely Hugo Høgdahl's 1946 publication "Norske ex libris og andre bokeiermerker. Fra biskop Arne Sigurdsson til Gerhard Munthe" ("Norwegian Exlibris and other bookplates. From bishop Arne Sigurdsson to Gerhard Munthe"), printed in Oslo at Oscar Andersens Boktrykkeri.
So, please tell me: Why is this book, in only fair condition, offered on finn.no for 10.000 NOK??? In my not-so-humble opinion, I believe this book is more than overpriced. Don't buy it – it is probably not worth it.
However, I guess here the mentality of the collector clashes with the mentality of the book historian and researcher. For my purposes, the book is relatively easy to find, it contains little information, and its historical value is somewhat disappointing. I would not consider buying it for 1.000 NOK, and I would consider 500 NOK to be on the high end of the price range.
Be it as it may: I will keep observing the Norwegian exlibris "market" and who knows what will pop up next?
On Friday, a book came into my possession: "Kvindehaderne" ("The Enemies of Women", 1919) by Spanish writer Vicente Blasco Ibanez, translated by Dannis Sandberg and published in 1924 in Kristiania (Oslo). The book itself is of no interest to me; what intrigued me, though, was the exlibris glued into the case/endpaper of the hardcover. It is a simple woodcut print, black and white, featuring "Ex Libris" at the top and the name of the owner, "Joh. Wold", at the bottom. It depicts a felled pine tree and two exposed tree stubs, possibly alluding to the owner's profession – or, as a symbolic image, the death or loss of somebody. There is an artist's signature in the bottom left corner, reading HK. The other side of the endpaper bears the handwritten name Johan Wold and below the year 1931.
We may assume that the owner is a certain Johan Wold, that the book entered his possession in 1931 and that he outfitted it with an exlibris right there and then or somewhen later. Since the book is a Norwegian translation and I found it in the Åmot area in Norway among a pile of old books from the Public Library at Modum and the Blaafarveværket school library, I assume that the owner is a Norwegian, possibly from that region, too. However, a quick check in the Norwegian exlibris catalogue ("Norske exlibris: fortegnelse over 8650 norske exlibris", 1974) reveals no exlibris with an owner named "Johan Wold". And the booklet with artists' signatures ("Norske Ex Libris Signaturer", 1948) has no entry for "HK" either! So, we cannot easily identify the owner or the artist.
Why is the exlibris not catalogued? There are some possible explanations:
(1) Johan Wold is not a Norwegian. He could be a Dane or a Swede, who (a) lived temporarily in Norway or (b) whose Norwegian book ended up in the Norwegian countryside. The "W" in the last name "Wold" instead of the more common Norwegian "V", "Vold" (both have the same sound in Norwegian) could be an indicator that the person is of Swedish origin, since this version is much more common there. However, since writing conventions are not that strong and there are many family relations between Norwegians and Swedes, this is not a strong argument. That the book carrying the exlibris made it into Norway from either Denmark or Sweden is rather unlikely; it is a Norwegian translation of a foreign title, and with Norwegian being the smaller 'sibling' of the three Scandinavian countries with a much smaller literary market, a Dane or Swede living outside of Norway would probably purchase a Danish or Swedish translation instead of a Norwegian one.
(2) The exlibris is created before the Norwegian exlibris boom in the 1940s and outside of Oslo (and Bergen) and thus never got noticed by the Oslo Exlibris Circle and Thorbjørn Schyberg, the author of the Norwegian exlibris catalogue. We have an indication of the date for the exlibris, albeit making quite a few assumptions. We can take the handwritten name and date, 1931, to indicate the acquisition of the book, and it would be natural to put an exlibris into a book when it enters a personal collection or library. Obviously, this is not a strong argument, as the exlibris could have been put there any time after the owner obtained the book. He could have added the handwritten note at a later point in time. But it is likely, for me, that 1931 is 'about the time' the exlibris was in use, and I argue that it was likely created and used around that time. Especially given that Schyberg did not register it in the catalogue.
It would help us in our quest to identify the exlibris if we knew who the artist "HK" was. The booklet with artists' signatures is by no means complete, but it covers quite a few Norwegian exlibris artists. Since it leaves us without a clue, I need to consult some older exlibris literature to find out more about the artist.
To get some more information on the owner, "Johan Wold", we can look the name up in the Norwegian Historical Population Register, HistReg.no. A search reveals that there are way too many individuals with the same name and similar birth and death dates, making it difficult to make a quick decision. When doing a Google search with the combinations of "Johan Wold" + "skog" (forest), or "skogsbruk" (forestry) or the region I found the book in (Åmot, Modum, in Buskerud fylke), a few ancestry pages pop up giving us some potential hints. It could be that our "Johan Wold" is the same Johan Wold (1876-1956) whose obituary was published in a newspaper in 1957 newspaper article. This Johan Wold experienced a family tragedy in his early life, losing his younger brother at sea, which the symbolism of the exlibris motif could refer to. Another hint suggests a doctor with the same name, possibly in the region, but with even less information and no relation to the exlibris motif. Both sources are weak; neither gives a clear connection to the motif depicted in the exlibris or to a person who was a book collector or interested in bookplates or small-scale graphical art. I have to do more research to solve this puzzle!
For the time being, the exlibris "Joh. Wold" is yet another uncatalogued Norwegian exlibris of the first half of the 20th century.
I'm a collector, but first and foremost, I am a researcher. So I use a lot of research tools for the exlibris collections I have and build. There's a neat digital tool, Tropy, developed for working with large (digital) photo collections, but it works equally well with almost any other kind of digital image.
I've started adding the Nysted Heier collection (box "S" - owner names starting with the letter "S") and have taken inventory of the published exlibris in the special collection of the Bergen Public Library (take a look at it on their website – in Norwegian - Bergenske Ex libris with ca. 1.000 exlibris that have the city of Bergen as their motif or are in some other way connected to Bergen.
A few years back, the Bergen Public Library had acquired the collection of poet and collector Einar Økland (entry in VIAF) which contains some 100+ Norwegian exlibris.
The main collection at the Bergen Public Library was initiated in the 1940s by Hanna Wiig (1885–1959) (entry in VIAF) She was in charge of the children's library then. With a call to the public in the magazine "Krebsen" (The Crab) from 1941, she asks the public to donate a pair of each Exlibris they have to the library's growing collection: "Jeg må derfor få nytte høve til å be om at ex libriseiere som leser dette vil sende 2 eksemplarer av sitt ex libris inn til Bergens offentlige biblioteks Billedavdeling. Alle bidrag vil bli mottatt med den største takknemlighet." (p. 61)
So, how to use Tropy? Tropy is a simple database that runs locally on your computer. It is open-source software and doesn't cost you any money to download and use. You start by adding a digital image of an exlibris to it and create a "collection", which can be anything from "your collection" of all exlibris to a thematic or one by the artist. Under "Metadata", you add information about the individual piece, like artist, owner, technique, year of creation, etc., you name it! It then lets you search and sort your collection. Of course, if your collection doesn't contain many pieces, using a digital tool might be too much; however, once your collection reaches a certain number of exlibris, I think it comes in handy.
In other news: A wood engraving exlibris for Werner Grebe by Belgian artist Frank-Ivo van Damme (entry in VIAF) has arrived, thanks to Andreas Raub (D.E.G. The German Exlibris Society). For my personal collection, I primarily collect relief printing, especially woodcuts and linocuts; I am delighted to add this beautiful piece to my collection.
I scanned the 1978 list of works of Albert Jærn (entry in VIAF) (20 EXLIBRIS af tegneren, maleren og grafikeren ALBERT JÆRN. Ed. by Thor Bjørn Schyberg. Exlibristen: Frederikstadhavn 1978). The exlibris œvre, collected and with a short biographical introduction by Thor Bjørn Schyberg (entry in VIAF) was published with Exlibristen(entry in GND) THE publisher for German and Northern European exlibris literature in the 2nd half of the 20th century. It's a short booklet listing 477 exlibris by Albert Jærn for mainly Norwegian owners. It's not out of copyright since Schyberg only died in 1992. I suppose I could ask Klaus Rödel, who owns Exlibristen publishing house, for reprint rights. No hurry, though. The booklet was published in a limited edition of 150 copies, of which I have number 109. It's part of the exlibris collection by Rolf Nysted Heier (1901-1992) (entry in HistReg) which I purchased from his eldest son in 2024. The booklet has a handwritten dedication by Schyberg to Heier, which reads "Til Rolf Nysted Heier Th. Schyberg". I assume this means this copy of the booklet was a gift from Schyberg to his former colleague and life-long exlibris friend Heier.
Why did I scan the booklet? Firstly, bc. I will eventually digitise the entire Nysted Heier collection and my addenda to it. Once my research project is complete and I am ready to part with the collection, it will be donated to the University Library of Oslo and added to their catalogue for special collections. The other reason is that I create a database of Norwegian exlibris, which combines (1) a description of each exlibris according to the FISAE criteria, (2) a classification of the image contents, i.e. its iconography, using the ICONCLASS ontology, and (3) an image search/recognition algorithm for identification of exlibris where other information is lacking or insufficient. Call it a research tool for provenance – and exlibris collectors. There are 20 original exlibris by Albert Jærn in the booklet, showcasing a variety of styles he used in creating the many bookplates during his relatively short life.
The main reason, though, is that I think I have found a hitherto unknown Albert Jærn exlibris. A friend of mine gave me a book a couple of weeks ago which they wanted to part with. It has an exlibris glued in, a rather small one, but with a two-colour print (blue and black ink). It is likely a cliché - or could it be a relief print? I have not been able to identify it in any of Albert Jærn's lists of works; however, it bears his signature: ♂. I will conduct further research on the owner, O. Sandaa, and I believe I am on the right track. Once I have a solid lead, I'll post about it.
What else can I add? I suppose that Albert Jærn must be, if not the most prolific, at least one of the most productive exlibris creators in Norway. During his rather short life, he created a large amount of exlibris - while his daily bread was working as an illustrator for several Norwegian publishing houses (Aschehoug being one of them) and advertisement companies. His illustrations were primarily drawings (ink), but he also seemed to have enjoyed using woodcuts and linocuts as a medium of artistic expression. Most notable perhaps is his "diary", published shortly after the end of the Nazi-German occupation of Norway in the spring of 1945. The book, called "Og så kom befrierne" (And so arrived the liberators), combines short diary-style notes and expressive woodcuts with which Jærn tells his personal story of the years of war and occupation. It is not a rarity; you can still find the book in several antiquarian bookshops in Northern Europe, even though it was printed in a limited run. There exists a bibliophile edition (the actual first edition), which I do not have, but it appears to be in the collection of the Guttormsgaards Archive, as they recently used it in an art exhibition event. I have a copy in near-mint condition, which I recently found on Norway's version of eBay, finn.no. It will get digitised eventually, too.
Today's log:
Norwegian Exlibris © 2025 by Annika Rockenberger is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International