Legendary Musician Magne Goes From Top of Music Charts to Woodcuts
As seen in ‘Esquire’ by Ryan D’Agostino
Entertainment magazine Esquire features newly represented DTR artist, Magne Furuholmen and his trajectory through his music career and now the art world.
Better known as the lead singer in the band A-ha and writer of “Take On Me,” Magne has quite the artistic resume. Having grown up with a musician of a father, who tragically passed away when Magne was six years old, he then began his journey into creative expression. As an ambitious teen, he played a few notes on the synthesizer to his friends who Magne had been ‘trying to write songs and form bands with since before they even liked girls.’ This sparked a life long music career and a hit song that didn’t leave the top charts for decades.
Furuholmen didn’t then decide that because he was a pop star he could also be a fine artist, he had a passion for visual arts since high school and kept several jobs hanging renowned works in museums early in his music career. However, it took solitude during the Covid-19 pandemic in France to spark his desire to create visually. Inspired by Henri Matisse, he began creating variations of woodcuts based on the priest robes that Matisse designed.
These seven designs, made into unique color editions named “De Luxe Edition (1-7/7 Chasuble)” are now apart of our collection here at DTR Modern Galleries and were recently displayed at the National Arts Club in New York City for a solo exhibition, May 2025.
“Standing in the gallery at the National Arts Club, surrounded by all forty-nine prints, I found my eyes pinballing around the room, picking up repetitions and variations among them. I felt surprise, curiosity, fleeting joy. I remembered Christmases and funerals; I tried to picture in my mind the process Furuholmen used to paint the wood; I thought about color and how it can make us feel. I thought about these things for the rest of the day and often in the days after” (D’Agostino).
Click here to read the full article.
Magne’s prints are available for purchase and for viewing in person at our Soho gallery on 458 West Broadway. See below for the full collection.
Magne Furuholmen creating the woodcuts in his Olso studio in preparation for his exhibition at the National Arts Club
