Surprised

You are now standing in front of one of the last statues Gustav Vigeland made and the very last to be erected in the park, nearly 60 years after his death, in fact. The sculpture is called "Surprised" because the model, Ruth Maier, was surprised when she was standing naked for Vigeland as a model. While she was standing there in the nude, another person entered the studio. Ruth frantically tried to hide herself with her hands, and hence the sculpture got its slightly bent forward posture. Gustav Vigeland first used the motif with such a woman in 1904. The model was the artist's partner and assistant at the time, Inga Syvertsen. The model for the same motif well over 30 years later was the aforementioned Ruth Maier. She was a young Jewish refugee from Vienna who was studying art and writing literary texts. Half a year after she modeled, she was tragically and brutally sent to Auschwitz and killed. In Norway, over 760 Jews were deported and killed in this dark chapter of Norway's history. Feel free to take a moment to remember Ruth and the other Jews.