Was it a woman who bit off his ear?': the wild life and serene photography of Tom Sandberg

"Norway has never looked as wet as in the photographs of the late Tom Sandberg. There are shots of drizzle and puddles, of asphalt slick with mizzle. A ripple of water appears to have a hole in it, a figure looms behind a rain-dappled window, a gutter glows after a downpour. Shot in either bold chiaroscuro or gentle orchestrations of greys, these are pictures with the power to make the everyday seem dreamlike."

"Sandberg, as a new retrospective at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter next to the Oslo fjord makes clear, was not only Norway's most famous photographer, pivotal in making the medium a serious art form in the Nordic region during the 1980s and 1990s. He was also a paradoxical character: hard-living, erratic, with a propensity for fanning his own myth with his tongue firmly in his cheek and yet able to produce compositions that are contemplative, calming and uplifting."

"Covering four decades, from student work taken in the mid-1970s through to pictures made shortly before his death in 2014, Tom Sandberg: Vibrant World is the first major Sandberg show since his death aged 60. The setting is apt: Sandberg was once the in-house photographer at Henie Onstad, capturing art happenings in its galleries and making closely cropped, vastly enlarged, monochrome portraits of visiting dignitaries, including the composer John Cage and the artist Christo."

Tom Sandberg made monochrome photographs that render wet Norwegian streets, surfaces and moments both dreamlike and uplifting through bold chiaroscuro and subtle grey orchestration. He juxtaposed everyday details — drizzle, puddles, rain-dappled windows, glowing gutters — with compositions that feel contemplative and calm. Sandberg worked across four decades, producing student work in the mid-1970s through images made shortly before his 2014 death. He served as in-house photographer at Henie Onstad, making enlarged portraits of cultural figures such as John Cage and Christo. Born in Narvik in 1953, he learned darkroom techniques from his photojournalist father and helped elevate photography as a serious Nordic art form during the 1980s and 1990s.

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