This year’s Nobel Diploma is an artwork signed the famous, Norwegian contemporary artist Sverre Bjertnæs. It was unveiled at the Nobel Peace Center Saturday, in the presence of the Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Jørgen Watne Frydnes and the artist himself.
Yesterday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 will be awarded to Maria Corina Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
In addition to the prize money and gold medal, the laureate will receive a diploma featuring an original artwork by a Norwegian artist. “We have chosen the person who, in my view, is the most important contemporary artist in Norway today”, said chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes. This year’s Nobel artist is Sverre Bjertnæs.
“It is a great honor to create an artwork for such an important prize”, said the artist, who got the assignment months before the name of recipient was announced. The motif of the diploma Maria Corina Machado will receive, is a parent and a child under the stars.
“I wanted to create a piece of art that could symbolize something that all the Nobel Peace Prize laureates have in common, namely the wish for a better world for”, said Sverre Bjertnæs.
After the unveiling, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, held a lecture about the new peace prize, followed by a panel discussion with experts. Political advisor Frank Conde Tangberg from Amnesty International Norway doubts that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who is living in hiding in Venezuela, will be able to come to Oslo to receive the medal and diploma in December.
The event is available online.
About the Nobel diploma
The diploma presented with the medal at the award ceremony on 10 December features original artwork by a contemporary Norwegian artist. The original diploma was designed by Gerhard Munthe. From 1970 up to and including 1990, the diploma was adorned with a woodcut by Ørnulf Ranheimsæter. In 1991 it was decided that the diploma should be given a new appearance each year by means of an original work of art commissioned from a contemporary Norwegian artist. The first diploma in the new format was the work of Karl Erik Harr. He has been followed by a number of well-known painters and graphic artists, including Håkon Bleken, Jakob Weidemann, Franz Widerberg, Vanessa Baird and Håkon Gullvåg.
About the artist
Sverre Koren Bjertnæs was born in Trondheim in 1976. At the age of sixteen, he studied under Odd Nerdrum and later attended the National Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo. He is considered one of Norway’s most important and central contemporary artists, and over the past decade, he has gained recognition on the international art scene. Bjertnæs exhibits regularly both in Norway and abroad. Through the use of literary and art historical references in his work, he has developed a distinctive visual language that has made him one of Norway’s most sought-after artists. He has collaborated with renowned Norwegian artists such as Håkon Bleken and Bjarne Melgaard.