This bronze plaque provides text in both Norwegian and English. The English text reads:
"CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YEARS, 1828-1843
Henrik Ibsen was born in Skien on 20 March 1828, the son of a merchant, Knud Ibsen, and his wife Marichen, nee Altenburg. His mother came from one of the town's wealthiest families while his father was descended from a line of sea captains. Having taken over his mother-in-law's neglected and debt-ridden schnapps distillery at Lundetangen, Knud Ibsen ran into financial difficulties with the onset of an economic recession. In 1835, under trying circumstances, the family of seven moved to the farmstead Venstop, where they cultivated fruit and kept chickens.
Here the young Henrik Ibsen learned the rudiments of writing and discovered the world of literature, while also absorbing strong impressions of societal structures and social conditions, of illness and disability, and of touring theatrical companies and market days. With paintbrush and precocious artistic skills, he vividly portrayed people from the district, often in comic situations, and depicted his siblings in animal likenesses on the farmstead doors. He also painted landscapes of his home region, established a small group of poetry devotees, and amused children in the neighbourhood with magic and his own puppet show."
The following information about Henrik Ibsen is from Wikipedia (
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"Henrik Johan Ibsen (20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of realism" and is one of the founders of Modernism in theatre. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House became the world's most performed play by the early 20th century.
Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's later work examined the realities that lay behind many façades, revealing much that was disquieting to many contemporaries. It utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. The poetic and cinematic early play Peer Gynt, however, has strong surreal elements.
Ibsen is often ranked as one of the truly great playwrights in the European tradition. Richard Hornby describes him as "a profound poetic dramatist—the best since Shakespeare". He is widely regarded as the most important playwright since Shakespeare. He influenced other playwrights and novelists such as George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Miller, James Joyce, Eugene O'Neill and Miroslav Krleža. Ibsen was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902, 1903 and 1904.
Ibsen wrote his plays in Danish (the common written language of Denmark and Norway) and they were published by the Danish publisher Gyldendal. Although most of his plays are set in Norway—often in places reminiscent of Skien, the port town where he grew up—Ibsen lived for 27 years in Italy and Germany, and rarely visited Norway during his most productive years. Born into a merchant family connected to the patriciate of Skien, his dramas were shaped by his family background. He was the father of Prime Minister Sigurd Ibsen. Ibsen's dramas continue in their influence upon contemporary culture and film with notable film productions including A Doll's House featuring Jane Fonda and A Master Builder featuring Wallace Shawn."