Ove Stokstad (9 August 1939 – 5 February 2018) was a Norwegian printmaker and jazz musician.

Life and career

He was born in

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; ), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros, and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2022, it had a population of 212,660. Trondheim is the third most populous municipality in Norway, and is ...

to Eva Prior Bergh and Rolf Colbjørnsen Stokstad, and was married to textile artist Gudrun Skeie Stokstad, who died in 2016. He is represented with art works in a number of museums, including the

National Gallery of Norway The National Gallery () is a gallery in Oslo, Norway. Since 2003 it is administratively a part of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design. History It was established in 1842 following a parliamentary decision from 1836. Originally lo ...

, and museums in

Östersund Östersund (; ) is an Urban areas in Sweden, urban area (Stad (Sweden), city) in Jämtland in northern Sweden. It is the seat of Östersund Municipality and the capital of Jämtland County. Östersund is located at the shores of Sweden's fifth-larg ...

, Reykjavík,

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

Couvin Couvin (; ) is a municipality and city of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium. On 1 January 2018 the municipality had 13,782 inhabitants. Couvin is the second largest municipality of Belgium by surface area, after Tournai. The tot ...

, Ottawa,

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

, Boston and New York City. He was appointed professor at the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art from 1996 to 2002. As jazz musician Stokstad played

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

and

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

s with jazz groups such as

Bodega Band Bodega Band (established 1929 in Trondheim, Norway) is a Norwegian jazz orchestra based in Trondheim, and part of "Studentersamfundets Orkester" at the Studentersamfundet i Trondhjem. The original sextet was established during the student festiv ...

and

Søyr Søyr (established 1976 in Trondheim, Norway) is a Norwegian musical group, led from the start of trumpeter Torgrim Sollid. Biography Søyr was initially inspired by folk music from Stor-Elvdal Municipality (among others Ole Mørk Sandvik) ...

, as well as leading his own ensembles. He also toured with

Concerts Norway Concerts Norway () was established in 1967 on the initiative of the Arts Council Norway (), with its main purpose described as follows: "Concerts Norway is to make living music of high artistic quality accessible to all people in the country." The ...

several times. Ove Stokstad had a strong political commitment and was socially engaged; he believed that it was self-evident that when you create culture and address an audience, you should also engage with your surroundings. He created several figurative images with black motifs on white paper. Several of these images show his commitment to human rights, often with stories of abuse and oppression in both subject and title.

References

1939 births 2018 deaths Musicians from Trondheim Norwegian printmakers Norwegian jazz musicians {{Norway-artist-stub