Our thoughts are with Her Majesty Queen Sonja, the Royal Family, and all those who were closest to him.

King Harald was a close friend of the museum’s founder, Hans Rasmus Astrup, and the Royal Family’s longstanding and profound commitment to Norwegian art and cultural life has been an invaluable source of support for the field as a whole.

Throughout his reign, the King helped open public life to a greater diversity of voices and experiences. He championed a sense of community that embraced difference, and a Norway in which more people could feel at home. In doing so, he also helped broaden the space in which art and artists can exist, speak, and be heard.

Harald was often described as the people’s king. But he was also a king who expanded the very idea of who “the people” are, and whose lives, images, and stories are given a place in the narrative we tell about ourselves.

May King Harald rest in peace.