Undying Faces ®

Wikipedia entry for Bjornstjerne Bjornson

BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON was born on December 8, 1832, at Kvikne (Osterdesen), so that he was four years younger than his great rival Ibsen. But whilst Ibsen brooded in solitude, calling himself and his fellows to account, Bjornson, with a not dissimilar outlook, always regarded the world and its innermost being with democratic optimism. Not only is he still familiar to us as a dramatist of the naturalist school, he is also a lyric poet of peculiar delicacy, to whom his Norwegian fatherland owes the unique quality of its national anthem. Nor must we forget, lastly, the combative temperament which inspired him as a journalist and agitator on behalf of a Norwegian republic. Bjornson died on April 26, 1910, at the Hotel Wagram in Paris, where his death mask was taken the following day by the French sculptor, Paul Moreau-Vantier; the first cast is in the possession of the poet’s widow at Aulestadt in Norway. (Information supplied personally by Mrs. Bjornstjerne Bjornson.)

Photos and quotations from: Benkard, Ernst, & Green, Margaret (1927). Undying Faces, A Collection of Death Masks. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc