Ski Art: Kaare Sørum (1911-1982)

This fourth-place diploma for an “international” race in 1948 held a special place in my uncle’s memory. Tommy Norgate had joined the Royal Air Force in 1939 and was posted to Norway immediately after the war as some sort of arbiter between the departing German Nazis and the Norwegians. He had been on skis only one season before this race.

The artist was Kaare Sørum, who had trained at the Statens kunst-og håndverksskole, the Norwegian School of Arts and Crafts in Oslo. He found work as a draftsman, lithographer and book illustrator, and became a well-known poster artist. Some of his work was printed by Thon, the same firm that produced the diploma. Sørum joined the Nasjonal Samling, the would-be Norwegian Nazi party, in November 1940. He worked with Harald Damsleth, and the two provided many posters extolling Norwegian Aryan men, women and children.

The war ended on 8 May 1945. Sørum was taken into custody three weeks later. His trial, five months later, resulted in an unanimous guilty verdict. He was sentenced to two years of hard labor—which was reduced by the five months he had already spent in prison. And, following the rulings of a post-war national law, he was deprived of some civil rights for 10 years. After the war, he turned to portraying more civil matters, illustrating a sea rescue service booklet, and also this diploma. The clothes are all Norwegian, the style all Arlberg—the forward lean, out of the gate and down to the next set, snow flying.

I wonder if my uncle had any inkling of all this as he treasured the special memory of those glorious winter excursions and particularly of his fourth-place success on the course in the Telemark hills of Norway. — E. John B. Allen

Note: My appreciation goes to Jon Lunde for newspaper clippings of Sørum and particularly to Halvor Kleppen, who sent me a number of hand-written and typed documents from the Norwegian state archives.