Seal Hunting in the Ice

Hunters in a boat approach seals in an opening in the ice. A sailboat waits in the background.

Thorolf Holmboe was born in Vefsn in Northern Norway and moved with his family to Tromsø further north at the age of 10. His father ran an art gallery and founded the Tromsø Art Society. Tromsø was (and still is) the portal to the Arctic and was a major centre of Arctic hunting. Most of the sealing vessels of Norway were based in Tromsø.

He was a student of the Norwegian painter legend Hans Gude in Berlin. He later lived and worked in both Paris and Oslo.