Bror Julius Olsson (B.J.O.) Nordfeldt immigrated to the United States in 1891 with his family. There, he worked as a typesetter at a Swedish-language newspaper, where his superiors noticed his artistic talent and urged him to pursue a career in art. To that end, Nordfeldt enrolled in the Chicago Art Institute in 1899 and began studying etching, engraving, drawing and painting.
Nordfeldt relocated to New York in 1907, but held his first solo exhibition in Chicago at the Albert Roullier's Gallery in 1911 featuring regional subject matter, painted in abstract and impressionist styles.
Use of flat, independent color combined with dense and strongly outlined forms created a unity between figures and landscape that characterized much of Nordfeldt's work. He used abstract designs consistently, but clarified the importance of connecting his work to reality by stating, "I believe that since all painting is borrowed visual experience, there must be a recognition element to serve as a bridge between abstract form and the beholder."
In 1914, Nordfeldt began spending summers in Provincetown, New York. He started experimenting with new printmaking techniques and in 1916 developed the "White-line" print. The method allows the artist to colorize a print using only one block of wood and one impression for each print instead of different blocks for each color the artist wished to include.
During World War I, Nordfeldt was employed as Assistant District Camoufleur for the U.S. Shipping Board in San Francisco, specifically assigned to camouflage merchant ships. After the war, Nordfeldt visited his friend and fellow artist William Penhallow Henderson (1877-1943) in Santa Fe and made the decision to relocate to the Southwest.
When Nordfeldt moved to Santa Fe in 1919, his work reflected a dramatic change in subject matter and opened up a new period of experimentation for the artist. The most notable change for Nordfeldt was the incorporation of local cultural motifs, particularly from Native American pottery. He also began using Native and Spanish Americans as models and through this gained importance as a pioneering modernist for his non-academic handling of American Indians, whom he painted in an Expressionistic manner, using bold colors and flat patterns. He painted motion-filled palettes of Indian figures and ceremonies, as well as untraditional portraits and still lifes. His pieces were, conceptually, a step further towards modernism than the material being produced by most New Mexico artists of the day. He was deeply involved not only in documenting Pueblo Indian tribes, but in attempting to preserve them. However, Nordfeldt considered many of his landscapes from the 1920s to be unsatisfactory and consequently destroyed many before leaving Santa Fe in 1937.
He began traveling the Midwest creating lithographs for the Works Progress Administration. The last decade of Nordfeldt's work focused on constants that could be documented throughout the artist's career.
Member: Taos Society of Painters; New Mexico Society of Painters; Chicago Society of Etchers; Society of American Etchers; Santa Fe Artists.
Exhibited: Milan, Italy, 1906 (medal); Pan-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915 (medal); Art Institute of Chicago, 1926 (medal); Sesqui-Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 1926 (medal); Corcoran Gal biennials, 1928-53 (13 times, including bronze medal, 1949); Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts annual, 1930, 1939-53; Denver Art Museum, 1936 (prize); Whitney Museum of American Art.
Works held: Metropolitan Museum of Art; Sydney, Australia, Museum of Fine Art; Art Institute of Chicago; New York Public Library; Toledo Museum of Art; Amon Carter Museum, Texas; Corcoran Gallery of Art; Biblioth?Éque des Arts et Archeologie, Paris; National Museum,Christiania, Norway; Detroit Institute of Art; Toronto Art Museum; Museum New Mexico; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Minneapolis Institute of Art; University Minnesota; Wichita Art Museum.
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