Otto Sinding

Otto Ludvig Sinding (20 December 1842 – 22 November 1909) was a Norwegian painter, illustrator, poet and dramatist. Sinding drew on motives from Norwegian nature, folk life and history.

Personal life

Otto Sinding was born in Kongsberg as a son of mine superintendent Matthias Wilhelm Sinding (1811–1860) and Cecilie Marie Mejdell (1817–86). He was the older brother of the sculptor Stephan Sinding and the composer Christian Sinding. He was a nephew of Nicolai Mejdell (1822–1899) and Thorvald Mejdell (1824–1908),¹ and through the former a first cousin of Glør Thorvald Mejdell, who married Otto's sister Thora Cathrine Sinding.² Otto Sinding was also a first cousin of Alfred Sinding-Larsen and the three siblings Ernst Anton Henrik Sinding, Elisabeth Sinding and Gustav Adolf Sinding.¹

In April 1874 in Karlsruhe Otto Sinding married Anna Christine Nielsen (1855–1914), an adoptive daughter of Hans Gude and Betsy Anker. Their son Sigmund Sinding became a notable painter.¹

Career

Otto Sinding went to art school in Christiania where he studied law and served as a civil servant. His first attempts at landscape painting earned him a scholarship, with which he went to Karlsruhe in Germany where he continued his studies. He studied art under at the in . It was there that Sinding also came into contact with and .