Artist Database

Nils Andersen was born in Drammen, Norway and immigrated to South Africa with his family as a teenager in 1911. His father was a skipper and joined a whaling vessel in Saldanha Bay before the family moved to Durban in 1914. Andersen initially studied engineering but dreamed of being an artist and enrolled in art classes at the Natal Technical Art School between 1924 and 1928 and then ceramics in 1938. He became a full-time artist in 1933 and taught art and ceramics at the Natal Technical Art School from 1942 to 1944. While not an official war artist, he was commissioned to paint the Durban Port and various warships during the war. Many of Andersen’s artworks hang in the Norwegian Hall on the Berea in Durban and some are in the offices of the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry – as well as in numerous private collections. Anderson’s subject matter was not only maritime, but also land- and seascapes, village and homestead scenes, and even still lifes.