Oslo Kunstforening is an art gallery and art society located in Oslo

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

.

Oslo Kunstforening is located at Rådhusgata 19. The gallery, situated in one of the oldest houses in the Kvadraturen

Kvadraturen

Kvadraturen is a description used by Norwegian city areas with quadratic forms. This often refers to the city planning by Christian IV, king of Denmark–Norway.* Kvadraturen * Kvadraturen * Kvadraturen...

 area, is the oldest artist gallery in Oslo. During the year, many varied shows are organized within the fields of drawing, painting, photography, lithography, textile, collage and sculpture. There is usually a new exhibition every month. The gallery features temporary exhibitions of Contemporary Art

Contemporary art

Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

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The chairman of the board of directors is Jon Øien, and board members are Sigurd Carlsen, Hans Henrik Klouman, Hjørdis Kurås, Eivind Reierstad and Sonja Wiik.

The gallery was founded as Christiania Kunstforening in 1836 by Norwegian cultural personalities including Johan Sebastian Welhaven

Johan Sebastian Welhaven

Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven was a Norwegian author, poet, critic and art theorist.-Background:...

, Johan Christian Claussen Dahl, Frederik Stang

Frederik Stang

Frederik Stang was a Norwegian lawyer, public servant, and politician who served as Norway's first prime minister....

 and Henrik Heftye

Henrik Heftye

Henrik Thomassen Heftye was a Norwegian businessman.-Personal life:He was born in Christiania as the son of merchant Thomas Johannessen Heftye and his wife Katharina Tschudi . He did not marry, but through his sister Betha he was a brother-in-law of ship-owner Mogens Thorsen...

. It was modeled as a facility mounting temporary art exhibitions after the Kunstvereine model common in many German speaking cities, such as Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden is a cultural institution in Dresden, Germany, owned by the State of Saxony. It belongs to the most renowned and oldest museum institutions in the world, originating from the collections of the Saxon electors in the 16th century .Today, the Dresden State Art...

 and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf

Kunsthalle Düsseldorf

-Building:The present art centre was built in 1967 in Brutalist architecture by the architects Konrad Beckmann and Brockes. They used commercially available precast concrete for the construction work.-History:...

. The National Gallery of Norway

National Gallery of Norway

The National Gallery of Norway is a gallery in Oslo, Norway. Since 2003 it is administratively a part of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design.-History:...

had not been established at that time, so the art society provided a permanent site for public art exhibition in the country's capital.