There is a wonderful story that goes with this drawing by Picasso. In 1957 Pablo’s friend, Artist Carl Nesjar, asked Picasso if he would like to paint a mural on the Regjeringskvartalet Government quarter buildings in central Oslo, Norway. Picasso, considering it, drew the two sided Fisherman, and a few other drawings as studies, which he gave to Nesjar, saying, “Here are the drawings. Take them. Do the project. You can do it!”

Nesjar, with the help of architect Erling Viksjø, proceeded to execute Picasso’s plans, which contained several drawings for large scale murals. Viksjø chose which of the drawings were to be executed as murals. Viksjø’s final choices consisted of mostly marine themes and were named The Beach, The Seagull, Satyr & Faun and two versions of The Fishermen. The designs were executed in concrete, in a novel technique invented by Carl Nesjar—a 250 ton concrete sandblasted design on the façade of Oslo’s landmark Y building, called The Fisherman.

In 2020, the artwork, along with its counterpart The Seagull, were removed from the building as part of a demolition project of the Y Building due to a terrorist attack in 2011 when the right- wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik detonated a car bomb nearby, killing eight people and damaging the building. Mr. Breivik later murdered another 69 people, mostly teenagers, on an island near Oslo. The attack remains a source of national trauma.

The fate of Picasso’s public artworks has been in limbo since, Preservationists and art world experts, versus Government authorities, have battled for years about the fate of Picasso’s murals and the Y Building. Finally, the artworks are set to be re-installed in a new building in 2025 / 2026.

The original Fishermen drawing, featured at our show, Mother Nature in the Bardo, was gifted by Picasso to his friend the artist Carl Nesjar in 1957, who in turn gifted it to the Y Building architect, Erling Viksjø, and was then bought by a private collector 2015.

Provenance
Collection of Carl Nesjar (the artist of the murals in the Oslo Government Complex; gift
of the artist in 1957)
Erling Viksjo (architect and project manager for Government Complex; gifted by the
above)
Private Collection (by descent from the above)
Grev Wedels Plass Auksjoner, 23rd November 2015, lot 35
Private Collection, Europe

Literature/Press
Antoniou, Sylvia A., A Concrete Partnership: Carl Nesjar & Pablo Picasso, Icefount Publishing, Oslo, 2009, illustrated p.18