Learn about the history of different types and styles of Norwegian sweaters, including Setesdal, Fana, Marius, and Olympic from textile expert and Vesterheim Chief Curator Laurann Gilbertson. Laurann will also discuss the symbolism behind some of the patterns and colors on sweaters made today. Be sure to invite your audience to wear their favorite sweater....
Norwegian photographer Lars Idar Waage will give a presentation in connect with the exhibit A Dying Norway – in a Living America?. Waage will first speak in Vesterheim Commons gathering space and then move to the second-floor gallery to discuss the photographs. The event is free and the Museum Store will be open until 7:00...
A Dying Norway – in a Living America? Exhibit Opens on November 8, 2024. This exhibit of documentary photographs by Lars Idar Waage is a portrait of Stavanger, Illinois, by someone from 6,000 miles away in Stavanger, Norway. The tiny town of Stavanger, Illinois, in LaSalle County, is the location of the first permanent settlement...
Vesterheim offers free admission the second Saturday of every month. Come and enjoy the museum! Special exhibits open are listed here. There's always something new! On this Free Second Saturday, Vesterheim Commons will be closed from 1:00-4:00 p.m. The Museum Building and Museum Store, as well as the outside campus will be open as usual....
Vesterheim welcomes preschoolers and their caregivers to Barnetimen Children’s Hour. Meet in the lobby of the museum’s Main Building to explore objects and stories in the museum’s collection and make fun art. November’s program will explore fiddle making and playing traditions in Norway and Norwegian America. We’ll look at and listen to fiddles in the...
Dr. Maren Johnson, Luther College's Associate Professor of Nordic Studies and Torgerson Center for Nordic Studies Director, facilitates a regular bokprat (book group), discussing Scandinavian authors and Scandinavian life. The November bokprat features Sagas of Luther College: Norwegian and Lutheran Identities Past, Present, and Future, edited by Dr. Maren Anderson Johnson and Rachel Faldet. Sagas...
Cozy up with a cup of cocoa or tea and get ready for the holiday season with Vesterheim. Vesterheim members will enjoy: • An insider update from Vesterheim President Chris Johnson, including highlights of plans for 2025 to commemorate 200 years of organized Norwegian migration to North America and updates on Vesterheim’s forging studio set to open...
Come to Decorah for this festival event for the whole family!
Enjoy Norwegian Christmas at Vesterheim with a Hardanger fiddle concert by Eden Ehm and a fiddle-making demonstration with Karen Rebholz. Eden Ehm’s interest in folk music and fiddling began during middle school and high school as the principal violinist of the Decorah Nordic Dancer's Orchestra. Eden began studying the Hardanger fiddle with Andrea Een while...
Everyone is invited to join Vesterheim and Luther College students for a free gallery talk about this new exhibit commemorating 200 years of Norwegian emigration! The ship Restauration set sail for America from Stavanger, Norway, on July 4, 1825, with 52 Norwegians aboard. To commemorate this bicentennial anniversary, Vesterheim presents this special exhibition focusing on Norwegian emigration,...
