Photographer Anders Beer Wilse (1865-1949) is often nicknamed “The National Builder in Norwegian Photography”. He is also called the most prominent photographer in Norway.
Anders Beer Wilse documented Norway in the early mid-20th century and also worked in the United States. He gave us the image of modern Norway – the conquering of nature through exploration and industrialization, shaping the “Norway brand” as we still see it today.
Related: The World of Ski Photography
Many Norwegian stamps used images of Wilse’s famous photographs. Wilse was born in Flekkefjord and grew up in Kargerø. He graduated with a technical degree from the technical school in Horten in 1882 and emigrated to the USA as a 19-year-old in 1884, where he got a job as a surveyor and cartographer. After using a camera to map the desolate mountains of Montana and Idaho, he began photographing other objects as well. His genuine interest in photography began when he bought his first camera in 1886 and began taking photographs. In 1897 he founded a photographic business in Seattle, but returned to Norway three years later and opened a studio there.
Related: Norwegian Ski-Jumps
Through thousands of books, stamps, postcards and not least slide shows across Norway, Wilse became known as the great landscape and tourist photographer. He also worked as Aftenposten’s correspondent on Svalbard, photographed stage images and actors at the National Theater in Oslo and took portraits of the great personalities of the time.
Anders Beer Wilse has played an important part in the shaping of Norway’s national self-image. He is perhaps most famous for documenting Norway’s landscape and its natural and urban life, but he also worked as a photographer for many major Norwegian companies – among them Norsk Hydro.
Related: The Best Postcards From Norway
A collection of his negatives is also kept in the Chusseau-Flaviens collection at George Eastman House. These images are being scanned digitally, and many are available online. In 2014, Wilse’s photos were included in “Norges dokumentarv” – the most important documentary heritage of Norway. Dagens Næringsliv describes Wilse as Norway’s most prominent photographer. “He left behind a cultural heritage,” the newspaper writes.
Norway’s Most Prominent Photographer, written by Tor Kjolberg
All photos © Anders Beer Wilse/Norsk folkemuseum
Feature image on top): Drøbak – Dr. Morterud’s Change of Guards, 1915