Retrospective exhibition of Ragnhild Keyser opens 24 October

Ragnhild Keyser. Kristiania - Paris - New York - Oslo
24 October 2026 – 7 February 2027
Galleri F 15, Albyalléen 60, Moss

Opening: Saturday 24 October 14:00
Curator: Hilde Mørch

Galleri F 15 presents a major retrospective exhibition of Ragnhild Keyser (1888-1943), one of Norway’s pioneering modernists.

The exhibition features more than one hundred works, primarily paintings, as well as drawings, gouaches, and sketchbooks. It highlights Keyser’s pioneering contribution to abstract art and sheds light on her artistic process, with a particular focus on works from the 1920s. During this period, Keyser was part of the Parisian avant-garde milieu, alongside leading artists such as Fernand Léger, Amédée Ozenfant, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier), Pablo Picasso, and Sonia and Robert Delaunay.

The exhibition title, Ragnhild Keyser. Kristiania - Paris - New York - Oslo, reflects Keyser’s artistic journey: from her upbringing and early education in Kristiania, to her studies and important exhibitions in Paris, onward to New York and the United States, where her works were shown in key avant-garde exhibitions, and finally back to Oslo, where she held her first and only solo exhibition and participated in numerous group exhibitions.

Inspired by movements such as Cubism, Purism, and avant-garde architecture, Keyser developed a distinctive abstract visual language that established her as a central figure in Norwegian modernism and secured her place within European art history.

Ragnhild Keyser died at the age of only 54 and never lived to experience the recognition she has received in later years. She left behind a body of work and archival material that continue to be the subject of research both in Norway and internationally.

The exhibition also includes works and presentations by contemporary artists Dag Erik Elgin, Arne Malmedal, Anders Sletvold Moe, Eline Mugaas, David Salle, and Marthe Elise Stramrud, all of whom have, in different ways, drawn inspiration from or entered into dialogue with Keyser’s artistic practice. Works by her colleague and friend Charlotte Wankel (1888-1969) will also be on display.

The works have been loaned from the Firestorm Foundation, Kunstsilo Tangensamlingen & Sørlandssamlingen, the National Museum of Norway, Northern Norwegian Art Museum, the Storebrand Art Collection, Yale University Art Gallery, as well as various private collections.

The exhibition is curated by art historian Hilde Mørch, who has researched Ragnhild Keyser’s work for several decades. In 1999, Galleri F 15 presented the exhibition Ragnhild Keyser: From Planar Cubism to Naturalism, also curated by Mørch.

In connection with the exhibition, the book Ragnhild Keyser: Kristiania-Paris-New York-Oslo by Hilde Mørch (Forlaget Press, 2026) will be published.

PRESS INFORMATION
Journalists may view the exhibition from Friday 23 October, 11:00 am.

Press viewings must be arranged directly with press contact Ann Kristin Traaen: akt@gallerif15.no, mobile +47 938 19 216.

Installation photographs will be published in the media library shortly after the opening. Please get in touch for interview requests and additional information.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ragnhild Keyser (1888-1943) was educated at Harriet Backer’s School of Painting and Pola Gauguin’s School of Painting in Kristiania. She lived and worked in Paris for much of the 1920s and 1930s, where she also studied with André Lhote, Roger Bissière, and Pedro Araujo in the early 1920s. From 1925 to 1926, she attended the Académie Moderne, where she studied under Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant. Together with fellow students, including Charlotte Wankel and Ragnhild Kaarbø, she developed a new visual language moving toward non-figurative art.

In 1925, she participated in L’Art d’Aujourd’hui (“Art of Today”), the first major presentation of international avant-garde art in Paris following the First World War. Here she exhibited alongside significant artists including Fernand Léger, Amédée Ozenfant, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Sonia and Robert Delaunay, and Constantin Brancusi.

In 1926, Keyser was discovered by the American artist and collector Katherine S. Dreier, who had founded the art organisation Société Anonyme together with Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray in 1920. Their mission was to promote European avant-garde art in the United States, and they invited Keyser to participate in the International Exhibition of Modern Art at the Brooklyn Museum in New York in 1926. Her paintings were acquired and subsequently exhibited in numerous avant-garde exhibitions throughout the United States for decades afterward.

In 1927, together with seven fellow artists from the Académie Moderne, she introduced her avant-garde art to a Norwegian audience in the exhibition Eight Scandinavian Cubists at Kunstnerforbundet in Oslo. The exhibition was met with highly negative reviews from Norwegian critics.

At the time, avant-garde painting had little support in Norway. Yet when its influence emerged more strongly several decades later, it did so through artists such as Gudrun Kongelf, Inger Sitter, Anna-Eva Bergman, Jacob Weidemann, and Gunnar S. Gundersen.

ABOUT THE CURATOR
Hilde Mørch (b. 1961) is an art historian, author, and curator who has curated numerous exhibitions, including Charlotte Wankel and L’Esprit Nouveau: Kambo-Kristiania-Paris-Høvik (Galleri F 15, 2019), Ryszrd Warsinski: Beauty and the Beast (Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, 2016), Charlotte Wankel: An Early Norwegian Avant-Garde Artist (Galleri F 15, 1997), Ragnhild Keyser: From Plan Cubism to Naturalism (Galleri F 15 and Rogaland Art Museum, 1999), and Borghild Røed Lærum: An Early Norwegian Cubist (Lillehammer Art Museum and Henie Onstad Art Centre, 1996).

OFFICIAL OPENING
Saturday 24 October, at Galleri F 15, Moss
The official opening will take place at 14:00 in Alby Café.

Opening Programme
Welcome by Director Elisabeth Byre
Introduction to the exhibition by Curator Hilde Mørch
World premiere performance of Bendik Hovik Kjeldsberg’s composition dedicated to Ragnhild Keyser
Read more

The gallery will be open from 11:00 – 17:00 on the opening day.
There is a return bus service to and from Oslo at 12.30 and 16.00 (please get in touch to book a seat on the bus, or use the ‘under 25’ free ticket).

Regular opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00 – 17:00.