Two Norwegian Artists, One Shared Fight
Harriet Backer’s portrait of Kitty Kielland, and the women’s movement behind it
When Harriet Backer painted The Artist Kitty Kielland in 1883, she wasn’t just making a portrait. She was documenting a presence: a working woman artist, shown with quiet authority and focus. The painting is held by Norway’s National Museum, and even the title is direct—this is Kitty Kielland as an artist, not as someone’s daughter, sister, or muse.
That matters more than it might seem at first glance.
Harriet's work click here
In the late 1800s, women who wanted to become professional painters had to push against limits that were social, financial, and institutional. Access to formal training was restricted, networks were often male-led, and a serious career could be treated as a strange choice. Backer and Kielland built careers anyway, and they helped make it easier for the women who came after.
Harriet Backer: painting light, building paths
Harriet Backer (1845–1932) became one of the best-known painters in Norway in her own lifetime. She is often celebrated for interiors, rooms filled with deep color and carefully observed light, but her impact goes beyond her canvases.
After returning to Norway, Backer ran her own art school in Kristiania (Oslo) from 1890 to 1912, teaching painting and life drawing. That kind of long-term, structured teaching mattered, especially at a time when women’s routes into professional art were narrower.
You can feel that same seriousness in the portrait of Kielland. It is calm and concentrated, with no need for drama. The message is steady: this is what an artist looks like at work.
Kitty Kielland: landscape painter and women’s rights voice
Kitty Lange Kielland (1843–1914) is known as one of Norway’s important landscape painters. She trained with respected teachers and developed a distinct visual language for Norwegian nature—often grounded, open, and unsentimental.
But Kielland was also active in the public debate on women’s rights. The National Museum describes her as “actively engaged,” noting that she co-founded the Norwegian Association for Women’s Rights in 1884, and that she wrote texts that appeared in newspapers and magazines.
The art print of Kitty Kielland
This is one of the parts people often miss: she was not only painting landscapes. She was also using her voice - written and public - to argue for women’s place in society.
A key step in Norway’s organized women’s movement came in 1884, when the Norwegian Association for Women’s Rights (Norsk Kvinnesaksforening, NKF) was founded. NKF’s own “About us” page describes the organization as Norway’s oldest women’s and girls’ rights organisation, founded in 1884 by 171 prominent women and men on the initiative of Gina Krog.
Kielland was part of that founding moment.
What this portrait is really showing
Backer’s portrait of Kielland is not a loud manifesto. It doesn’t need to be.
Instead, it does something quietly radical for its time: it presents a woman as a professional artist. Composed, capable, and self-contained. It treats her work as normal. That “normal” is powerful, especially in a period where women’s ambition was often expected to stay private.
And it hints at something deeper: community.
Backer and Kielland moved in circles where women supported one another’s careers, exchanged ideas, and shared strategies for navigating a world that didn’t automatically make room for them. AWARE (Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions) notes that Backer formed friendships with fellow Norwegian painters including Kitty Kielland during her years in Munich.
Friendship might sound small compared to “history,” but networks are how change spreads. The women’s movement is not only laws and speeches, it is also who gets encouraged, introduced, taught, and taken seriously.
Why International Women’s Day is a good moment for this
International Women’s Day is often reduced to a list of famous names. But this story is more interesting than a list. It’s about how art, work, and activism can sit side by side in a single life, and how one woman can use her craft while another uses her voice, and both push forward.
Kielland helped build an organization that worked to change women’s rights in Norway.
Backer helped build a practical path into art through decades of teaching.
And in 1883, Backer made an image that still communicates a clear idea: a woman artist belongs here.
A small invitation
If you look at the portrait today, try to notice what isn’t there: there’s no need to “prove” anything. Kielland is simply present, simply professional.
That quiet confidence is part of the legacy too.