Thorvald Hellesen (1888–1937) was a Norwegian avant-garde artist who lived and worked in Paris during the 1910s and 1920s. He and his wife, the French artist Hélène Perdriat, were part of an artistic circle that included Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Constantin Brâncuși, Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, and many others. Throughout his short but intense life, Thorvald Hellesen created an impressive and unique body of work focused on modernism, consisting of oil paintings, watercolours, gouaches, drawings, design projects, and textiles.

From 1923 to 1928, Hellesen carried out extensive decorative work in the Sjøfartsbygningen (Maritime Building) in Oslo. The building was erected as a hub for the growing Norwegian shipping industry, initiated by Eivind Eckbo in his capacity as secretary of the Norwegian Shipowners' Association. Alice Mary and Eivind Eckbo were Thorvald Hellesen's most important patrons and commissioned him for several projects, including murals in a multi-family house for employees of Oslo Sporveier, decorations in Villa Eckbo, and the colour scheme of Eckbo's property complex St. Annæ Passage in Copenhagen, completed in 1936-37. The work now being sold through Bukowskis has much in common with the ceiling decorations in the stairwells of the Maritime Building and may have been a preparatory work for such, or an independent piece based on the same formal principles.

(Dag Blakkisrud)