Lorentz Severin Skougaard
{{Short description|Norwegian tenor}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2023}}
{{infobox person
| image = Portrett av Lorentz Severin Skougaard (Severini) - no-nb digifoto 20150106 00003 blds 06763 (cropped).jpg|
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1837|05|11|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Farsund, Norway
| death_date = {{death date and age|1885|02|14|1837|05|11|df=yes}}
| death_place = New York City, U.S.
| occupation = Singer
| partner = Alfred Corning Clark
}}
Lorentz Severin Skougaard (11 May 1837 - 14 February 1885) was a Norwegian tenor.
Early life
File:Lorentz Severin Skougaard.jpg
Lorentz Severin Skougaard was born on 11 May 1837 in Farsund, Norway, the son of Jonas Eilertsen Lund Schougaard (1807-1877) and Sara Helene Jonasdatter Lund (1813-1910).
At first he was a trading officer, working at first in Memel, Norway, and then London. Later he moved to Paris and Italy to study music.{{cite web|last1=Haandlexikon|first1=Norsk|title=Skougaard, Lorentz Severin, Norsk Haandlexikon (1881-1888)|url=https://runeberg.org/haandlex/3/0119.html|access-date=7 January 2018}}
Career
In 1864 Lorentz Severin Skougaard sang in Stockholm, Berlin and Christiania. In Paris in 1866, he met Alfred Corning Clark.Harold E. Dickson, "Barnard and Norway," The Art Bulletin, vol. 44, no. 1 (March 1962), pp. 55-59.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/3047986?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents (JSTOR) $]
In 1866 Skougaard gave a series of recitals in New York City in conjunction with Alfred H. Pease at the Irving Hall. The recitals introduced him favorably to the New York public and he became a successful vocal teacher. In 1874 he have a charitable concert at the Steinway Hall in aid of the Scandinavian poor of New York City. There were a large number of performers and it was under the patronage of many prominent persons.{{cite journal|title=Charitable Concert - 17 Jan 1874, Sat • Page 4|journal=The New York Times|date=1874|page=4|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/16340634/the_new_york_times/|access-date=7 January 2018}}
Personal life
File:Langesund Kirke (gravmæle).JPG
Lorentz Severin Skougaard moved to the United States in 1866. In 1869, the same year when he married, Clark began making annual summer visits to Norway with Skougaard, eventually building a house on an island near Skougaard's family home. Clark's son, born in 1870, bears the middle name of Severin. When in New York City, Skougaard lived in Clark's flat at 64 West 22nd Street.{{cite news |last1=Applegate |first1=Debby |title=The Clarks of Cooperstown - Nicholas Fox Weber - Books - Review |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/books/review/Applegate-t.html |access-date=11 December 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=20 May 2007}} The apartment was a favorite evening resort for music lovers, attracted by Skougaard's very companionable qualities, and the house for years was known as "Severini Hall".Nicholas Fox Weber, The Clarks of Cooperstown: Their Singer Sewing Machine Fortune, Their Great and Influential Art Collections, Their Forty-year Feud. Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. {{ISBN|0307263479}}, pg. 76 According to Nicholas Fox Weber's biographer of the Clark family (The Clarks of Cooperstown, 2007), Clark led a double life, in the United States a family man, in Europe a gay aesthete. For 19 years his closest companion was Skougaard.Debby Applegate, [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/books/review/Applegate-t.html?ex=1181016000&en=658f5abf714f56d0&ei=5070 "Outrageous Fortune,"] The New York Times Book Review, 20 May 2007.{{cite book|last1=Buckman|first1=Jack|title=Unraveling The Threads: The Life, Death and Resurrection of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, America's First Multi-National Corporation|date=2016|publisher=Dog Ear Publishing|page=102|isbn=9781457546617|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ysk4DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA102|access-date=7 January 2018}}
On 14 February 1885, in New York City, Skougaard died of typhoid fever.{{cite journal|title=L. Skougaard Severini - 15 Feb 1885, Sun • Page 2|journal=The New York Times|date=1885|page=2|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/16340218/the_new_york_times/|access-date=7 January 2018}}
=Legacy=
Clark eulogized him in a privately published biographical sketch, Lorentz Severin Skougaard : a sketch, mainly autobiographic[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/900333107 Alfred Corning Clark, Lorentz Severin Skougaard: a sketch, mainly autobiographic, (privately published, 1885)], from WorldCat. and created a $64,000 endowment in his memory for Manhattan's Norwegian Hospital, 4th Avenue & 46th Street.The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 26 January 1911, p. 1.
Clark also commissioned Brotherly Love (1886–87) to American sculptor George Grey Barnard to adorn his friend's grave in Langesund, Norway.Glenn C. Altschuler, [https://web.archive.org/web/20150912105519/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2007-06-17/news/0706150188_1_clark-nicholas-fox-weber-sterling "Meet 3 Generations of American Originals,"] The Baltimore Sun, 17 June 2007. The homoerotic sculpture depicts two nude male figures blindly reaching out to each other through the block of marble that separates them."George Grey Barnard (1863 – 1938)," in Lauretta Dimmick and Donna J. Hassler. American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: A catalogue of works by artists born before 1865. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999. pp. 421-27.[https://books.google.com/books?id=8jr6vNLLYMgC&pg=PA421&lpg=PA421] Later Clark moved Barnard to New York City and maintained him.{{cite news |last1=Applegate |first1=Debby |title=Book Review: The Clarks of Cooperstown |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/18/arts/18iht-idbriefs19C.5771034.html |access-date=11 December 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=18 May 2007}}
References
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Category:Norwegian LGBTQ singers
Category:Norwegian gay musicians