Editing Odd Nerdrum (section)

==Biography==
===Early life===
Nerdrum was born in Sweden. His Norwegian parents were resistance fighters who had fled German-occupied Norway to [[Helsingborg]], [[Sweden]] during World War II where Nerdrum, subsequently, was born.  At the end of the war Nerdrum returned to Norway with his parents. By 1950 Nerdrum's parents had divorced leaving the mother to raise Odd and his younger brother. In 1993, Nerdrum discovered that his father was not his biological father; his mother had had a relationship with the architect [[David Sandved]]. Nerdrum was born from this liaison. 

Odd Nerdrum grew up as the son of lawyer and airline director Johan Nerdrum and shipowner's daughter Edith Marie (Lillemor) Nerdrum. He was born in [[Helsingborg]], [[Sweden]] in 1944. His parents, then [[Resistance movement|Resistance]] fighters, had been sent to Sweden from German-occupied Norway to direct guerrilla activities from outside the country. A year later, at the end of the war, Odd and his parents moved back to Norway. Lillemor, his mother, soon after, went to New York to study at the [[Fashion Institute of Technology]]. Nerdrum felt unwanted and abandoned; this feeling would stay with him until he was in his late forties. In 1950, Nerdrum's parents divorced, leaving Nerdrum's mother, Lillemor, to raise two small children, Odd, and his younger brother.<ref name="Vine 26-42">{{cite book |last=Vine |first=Richard |title=Odd Nerdrum: Paintings, Sketches and Drawings. |year=2001 |publisher=Gyldendal Norsk Forlag A/S, Gyldendal Fakta |location=Oslo}} pp. 26-42</ref>

Nerdrum's father, Johan Nerdrum, later remarried. Although he was supportive of Odd, he kept an emotional distance between himself and his son. At his death, Odd was asked not to attend the funeral. He found out three years later that Johan was not his biological father. Odd, was in fact, the result of a liaison between [[David Sandved]] and Lillemor. Lillemor and Sandved had had a relationship prior to Lillemor's marriage, and this was resumed during the war in a period when Johan was absent. Richard Vine, art critic, describes this episode in Nerdrum's life as one which created "a conflicted preoccupation with origins and personal identity", that "came natural to Nerdrum" and was represented in his pictures. He would go on to make paintings about these experiences.<ref name="Vine 26-42"/>

===Early education===
Nerdrum began his formal education in 1951 in Oslo, in the private [[Oslo Waldorf School]] (''Rudolf Steinerskolen i Oslo''). In Norway, [[anthroposophy]] in general and the Waldorf schools in particular have been strongly associated with the cultural and intellectual elite of the country since the early 20th century,<ref name=morgenbladet>[http://morgenbladet.no/kultur/2008/hundre_ars_tosomhet?quicktabs_mest_lest_mest_kommentert=0 Hundre års tosomhet], [[Morgenbladet]], 19 Dec 2008</ref> and the school attracted a combination of children of artists, academics and financial elites. This education would set Odd apart from his contemporaries. The system was based on [[anthroposophy]] that saw mankind as once living in harmony with the universe but now existing in a lesser state of rationality. Through spiritual or esoteric practice, Steiner believed mankind could find its way back to a connection with higher realities and to renewed harmony with the universe. Learning for students was often [[Kinesthetic learning|kinesthetic]], for example, through dramatic enactments of history and fantasy, and through musical exercises that were reminiscent of the patterns found on ancient [[Greek art|Greek vases]], depicting figures moving in parallel patterns. These parallel patterns could be found in later Nerdrum work, as can a sensibility for [[iconographic]] images and costume.

[[Jens Bjørneboe]], Norwegian author and mentor, said Nerdrum even at a young age exhibited tendencies of innate talent and industry, but also impatience with those with less ability than himself.<ref name="Vine 26-42"/>