Jens Thiis

Jens Thiis (12 May 1870 – 27 June 1942) was a Norwegian art historian, conservator and a prominent museum director. He was conservator at the Nordenfjeld Industrial Arts Museum (Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum) in Trondheim beginning in 1895 and director of the National Gallery in Oslo from 1908 to 1941. Biography Jens Peter Thiis was born at Kongshavn in Aker, Norway. He was the son of Abraham Bøckmann Thiis (1840–90) and Emma Marie Löwegren (1842–1928). Thiis grew up with his mother's parents, goldsmith H. P. Löwegren and his wife in Kristiania (now Oslo). He graduated artium at Aars og Voss' skole in 1888. Thiis was a student at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry (Den kgl. Tegneskoleunder) where he trained under artist Christen Brun (1828-1905) and academy director Wilhelm Holter (1842-1916). He studied art history under Lorentz Dietrichson followed by study trips in Germany, Italy, Belgium and France from 1892 to 1896. He was unusually alert to the trends of his time. In 1907, when at the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum in Trondheim, he engaged Henry van de Velde, now considered one of the foremost stylists of his time, to design an Art Nouveau display room and all its furniture and furnishings. The Henry van de Velde Room is unique in its kind, being specially designed for this purpose. It was later recreated on the premises of the new Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum. As director of the National Gallery he bought French contemporary art (Monet among others) and thus made a solid base for the French collection that is now one of the gallery's main attractions.