Bill Clinton was the first sitting US president to visit Norway. He spent two days in November 1999 among others to take part in events commemorating the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. A part of the stay was also made a state visit. Clinton also visited Oslo under his student days back in the 1960s, and after leaving the presidency he has come to Norway 2-3 times (I had the opportunity to shake hands with him during his visit to Oslo in May 2007).«This remarkable letter [to his sons back home] was finished just as the Horace reached Norway on September 18, 1809. The war between England and France had made the Scandinavian region jittery whenever a strange ship appeared. The British bombardment of Copenhagen had pushed Denmark into an alliance with France, so that Adams experienced what seemed like incessant inquiries and inspections by Danish officials.»But the book doesn’t explicitly say that Adams ever set foot on land. However, the answer seems to be found in his diary no. 28 (and no. 23), where he among others tells about his stay in Kristiansand where the Adams family during a storm lodged "at the Isaacson's" (to this family belongs among others former Norwegian Prime Minister Kåre Willoch as well as the artist Olaf Isaachsen). I am not sure if one can find out more about the stay than what can be read in the said diary. I hope to explore the question further one day.
The exhibition was opened on Thursday 3 September by former Norwegian prime minister Kåre Willoch, who descends from the Isaachsen family.
Olaf Wilhelm Isaachsen was born at Mandal on 21 March 1835 as the second son of Daniel Peter Christian Isaachsen (1811-1882) and Cecilie Marie Wattne (1811-1895), and thus belonged to the Isaachsen-Willoch family’s branch 1 line 2, while Kåre Willoch descends from line 4. The architect Thomas Willoch, b. 1933, who for many years worked at the Royal Palace in Oslo as Palace Superintendent, belongs to the third line.
Isaachsen was educated at an arts academy in Düsseldorf, Germany and was also an apprentice with the French artists Thomas Couture and Gustave Courbet.
Isaachsen was one of the first Norwegian artists who after finishing his education decided to settle in Norway to live on his art. He struggled to get recognition in his lifetime, and after his death at Kjos in Kristiansand on 22 September 1893 he was for a long period a forgotten painter. Today Isaachsen is regarded as one of Norway’s most prominent artists and greatest colourists with motives from Setesdalen and the coast landscape of Southern Norway.
Olaf Isaachsen married at Düsseldorf on 23 August 1864 Antonie Johanne Prehr (1838-1870), daughter of veterinary Wilhelm Heinrich Prehr and Jeanette Walther. The couple had four children – William (1865-1942), who emigrated to New Zealand; Eivind (1866-1926); Johanna Maria (1867-1872) and Harald (1869-1942). Only the latter continued to live in Mandal, but his children ended up in Oslo and in the United States.
The author Tone Klev Furnes has also written other books about artists from Mandal. In 2000 she published «Amaldus Nielsen – kystens maler» and five years later she finished the book «Én by – fem kunstnere» («One city – five artists») about the artists Adolph Tidemand, Olaf Isaachsen, Amaldus Nielsen, Gustav Vigeland and Emanuel Vigeland.
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