About this work
*Large Self Portrait* (Norwegian: *Stort selvportrett*) is a tone woodcut on paper, made in 1914. The work presents the artist face-on — an arresting, close-cropped image stripped of background ornament, where the grain of the carved block becomes as expressive as the face itself. The medium imposes its own discipline: line thickens and softens in ways no painted brush can replicate, and the tonal transitions between light and shadow carry the deliberate, unhurried quality of wood yielding to a blade. What the viewer encounters is not flattery but something more uncomfortable — a direct, unmediated stare from a man who has chosen exactly how much of himself to show, and the woodcut's inherent resistance to sentimentality ensures he shows nothing false.
Astrup had been interested in Japanese woodcutting since his time in Paris in 1901, but it was not until 1914 that he began to focus more seriously on producing his own woodcuts.
His very first woodcut had been a small, black-and-white self-portrait in 1904 — making this *Large* Self Portrait a decade-long return to the same subject, but now in full command of the medium. In 1913, Astrup had settled with his wife and children at Sandalstrand on the south side of Lake Jølstravatn — a move that consolidated his identity as an artist rooted entirely in one place. The 1914 portrait, then, is a kind of self-definition at a decisive moment: the painter staking his claim, insisting on his own face as a subject worthy of the same intensity he brought to the fjords and bonfires of Jølster. The work is now held in the collections of the Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design in Oslo, acquired from Harda Robsahm in 1968.
As wall art, this print rewards a quiet room — a study, a reading corner, anywhere that calls for a presence rather than decoration. Inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e prints, Astrup produced multi-layered works now considered among the most original in Norwegian art history , and this self-portrait carries that lineage visibly: the image has graphic weight and stillness that holds its own against plain, pale walls or dark-painted panelling alike. It speaks to the viewer who is drawn to work with an interior life — art that doesn't simply fill a wall but asks something back. The gaze in this print does not wander. It meets yours.
