Norway was the key to the life and art of landscape painter William H. Singer, Jr., and it was Norwegian artist Martin Borgord, living in Pittsburgh, Singer's hometown, who offered him that key.

Singer was born in 1868 of well-to-do parents involved in the industry of the steel-producing town. Singer would eventually inherit a large fortune that he would use to help the inhabitants of Olden, a Norwegian fishing village, where he would later settle and encounter the Nazis during their occupation in World War II.

But as a youth, his desire to be a painter was thwarted by his father who wanted Singer to join the family business, which he did for eleven years. While thus employed, Singer studied with Borgord and painted landscapes...