The Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum has been sentenced to two years in prison after a local court in Oslo found him guilty of aggravated fiscal fraud. The sentence was proclaimed yesterday, following a process against the norwegian for failing to declare around NOK 14 million in taxable income from the sale of paintings between 1998 and 2002. Nerdrum was also ordered to pay court costs of NOK 10,000.
He claimed he had paid taxes to Iceland, to where he moved in 2002, and that part of the NOK 5 million in cash that he placed in a safety deposit box in Austria, was to make face to eventual claims that he might get due to the use of a special mixture of oils and paint in an effort to recreate the style of the old masters, which caused signs of trickling paint. The other NOK 9 million are based on checks and bank account statements acquired by the tax authorities with the help of tax authorities in the US, where Nerdrum has long had a large customer base.
The court took into consideration that Nerdrum suffers from Tourettes Syndrome, but still believed that the artist had a “conscious attitude” towards the income his art generates. On his turn the artist said that he was not good with numbers.
In the words of Irena Jovic, project leader for an exhibition at Tjuvholmen in Oslo organized by near 30 friends and former pupils with the purpose of showing support for the artist and what his work meant to young artists, Odd Nerdrum has allowed many young artists to work with him over the years for no fees.
Odd Nerdrum was born on April 8, 1944 in Helsingborg, Sweden.
This article contains excerpts from Views and News from Norway
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