Cold Spring

There are no known descriptions or photographs of this picture, but the title indicates that the subject is a landscape in spring.

In 1941, the doctor Claus Quist-Hansen (1879–1977) loaned this Astrup painting to the exhibition  «Medlemmenes egen utstilling» (“The members’ own exhibition”) at the Bergen kunstforening art society. The critic for the newspaper Dagen (16/06/1941) described Astrup’s three paintings at the exhibition as “emblematic of the region”. Like View of Sunde (K143) and Growing Season Weather (K201), the subject of “Cold Spring” is also probably somewhere in Jølster.

Qvist-Hansen was an ear, nose and throat specialist in Bergen, who established the tuberculosis society in 1911. It is unknown how Qvist-Hansen got hold of the painting, but it is reasonable to believe that Astrup may have had dealings with the doctor on account of his lung problems. The artist had suffered from asthma since childhood, and in 1911 an unnamed doctor was worried that he had tuberculosis. Astrup was subsequently given the all clear.

The history of “Cold Spring” is therefore unknown before and after the exhibition in 1941.