Håkon Bleken, 1929 – 2025
“You cannot show me these things, Gjermund. I’ll never get any painting done.” The words are those of famous artist Håkon Bleken, and we’re sitting together watching YouTube. I’m trying to teach him how the internet works, and the “student,” well into his 80s, quickly understands that this is all-consuming stuff.
What started as me delivering him a CD with images turned into a website project for his art. Not bad for a 20-year-old freelancer just getting started. And as soon as things went live, emails started pouring in. So Håkon and I began meeting regularly at cafés, where I would read his emails aloud. One by one.
The content was typically along the lines of “we are an association that would like to use this image…” and the reply just as typically: “Just use it. Håkon.”
Other times we chuckled over questions about whether pop artist Åge Aleksandersen had inspired a particular painting. A journalist once asked about the process from idea to finished work, and received the answer: “fumbling and awareness.” Full stop :-)
Eventually, I got him an iPad. He was able to figure it out, and from then on the emails became self-service. A bit of a shame, because it put an end to one of my highlights: seeing him step out of his SUV with a roll of paintings under his arm. That’s when I knew a gift was incoming.
But I knew Håkon’s art long before we ever met in person. My grandmother and grandfather were close friends of his, and their house was practically wallpapered with his work. Every room, even the ceilings.
For us grandchildren, some of the motifs were so dark and eerie that it was practically nightmare fuel. If we went down to the dimly lit TV basement, we had to pass a two-meter-long corpse Håkon had painted of his own father. Another painting had such grotesque details that it haunted a friend of mine for years. “A good piece of art is something you're never quite done with,” my grandfather used to say, and many of us children could attest to that.
Håkon was a wonderfully contradictory man. He insisted on “painter” as his title on business cards, as anything else felt too pretentious. Yet he saw it as well deserved that he was made Commander of The Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. “If you have something to offer, you should be recognized for it.”
The guy had plenty of money, but in the lavish Speilsalen restaurant of Hotel Britannia, he stuck to simple cheese sandwiches. Without butter.
He could think his own works were truly great, and at other times be full of doubt. After a negative comment on a charcoal drawing, his confidence took a hit. My grandfather loved the piece, and Håkon told him to “just take it.” One day when I stopped by, Håkon himself was standing at my grandfather’s place, admiring the two-meter-wide artwork on the wall. “I can't believe I gave you that painting, Egil.” His attitude towards it had changed, but the painting stayed – and can now be seen at my parents' house in Tromsø.
When my grandfather Egil died, Håkon took it so hard that he couldn’t bring himself to attend the funeral. But he wrote a remarkable obituary for Adresseavisen that still leaves an impression on me. As I wrote this, I revisited his art: in the old website folder, in books, and online. A truly extraordinary body of work, which I guarantee no one has a complete overview of. Not even himself, despite his villa at Byåsen being filled to the brim with art.
Håkon was a master of his craft. But also a sharp, generous, and kind man, who kept doing what he loved until the very end. May we all be so fortunate.