Partner Bolette Berg
Queer Places:
Preus museum, Kommandørkaptein Klincks vei 7, 3183 Horten, Norway
Marie
Høeg (15 April 1866 – 22 February 1949) was a Norwegian photographer and
suffragist.[1]
Høeg's published work was traditional in nature, while her private
photography, including images of and created with her partner, Bolette Berg,
challenged ideas of gender.[1]
She was the founder of the Horten Discussion Association, which is still
active today.[2][3]
Høeg also started the Horten Branch of the National Association for Women's
Right to Vote, the Horten Women's Council and the Horten Tuberculosis
Association.[4]
Høeg was born in Langesund on 15 April 1866.[2]
She was a photography student in Brevik and completed her photography
apprenticeship in 1890.
From 1890 to 1895, Høeg lived in Finland, working as a photographer in
Ekenäs and Hanko.[2]
Here, she was greatly influenced by the Finnish women's rights movement.[5]
Høeg moved from Finland to Horten in 1895 together with
Bolette Berg. Berg was five years
younger than Høeg and had trained as a photographer, probably while living in
Finland.[2][6]
Høeg and Berg set up and ran their own photography studio,[7]
which was named Berg & Høeg.[2]
Høeg used their studio not only for photography, but also as a meeting place
for women interested in feminism and women's suffrage.[2]
Høeg and Berg moved to Kristiania (present-day Oslo) in 1903 and continued
working as professional photographers there, mostly producing scenic and
portrait post cards.[6][8]
The two founded the publishing company Berg og Høghs Kunstforlag A.S.,
publishing books such as the three-volume Norske Kvinder, which
concerns the topic of the history of Norwegian women.
Høeg and her partner Bolette Berg in one of their own photos
Marie Høeg died in Oslo on 22 February 1949.[2]
Many of her glass negatives were discovered after her death inside a barn
in the 1980s.[9]
The barn was on the property of a farm where Berg and Høeg lived at the end of
their lives.[9]
A series of negatives in a box labelled "private" contained photographs of
Berg and Høeg dressed in men's clothes, smoking, and wearing mustaches.[10]
These 440 glass negatives are now in the collection of the Preus Museum.[4]
My published books:
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