Per Ung is a Norwegian sculptor famous for his public sculptures of well-known national icons found all over the country.
Born in Oslo, he studied figurative sculpture with the famous Per Palle Storm at Norway’s National Art Academy (Statens Kunstakademiet) from 1952-55, and then modernism in 1960 with Anthony Caro at the St Martin’s School of Art in London.
His first major statue commission was a bronze work of actress Johanne Dybwad outside the Oslo National Theatre, after which his work was in popular constant demand, even if some critics denigrated his style as being too romantic and traditional. Ung didn’t care. Some of his other well-known public statues are of figure skater Sonja Henie located at Frogner Stadion, Fridtjof Nansen outside the Fram building at Bygdøy, a fisherman’s wife at the entrance to Svolvaer harbour, resistance hero Gunnar Sonsteby in Oslo, and of the composer Johan Halvorsen outside the National Theatre in Oslo. In 1978, he conceived another famous bronze work, Omfavnelse (Embracement or The Embrace).
He sculpted all five medals for the 1975 set of the Nordic Medal Series, for Denmark, Greenland, the Faroes, Iceland and (for the first time) Norway. Each exemplifies his strong linear style and typically carry local passages of burnishing to give them patina as if they’d been extensively handled.
Per Ung died of cancer in Oslo on June 20, 2013, at the age of 80.
Contributed by Chrystopher J Spicer