For his entire life Kaare K. Nygaard had a close relationship with his home town, Lillehammer, Norway.  He felt particular affection for the Maihaugen Open Air Museum founded there by Anders Sandvig in 1887 as a collection of structures and objects from the area’s rural past.  In his and his wife Ella’s first will in 1961, Nygaard left all of his possessions to Maihaugen.  This was a decision destined to create problems.  Maihaugen was unaware of the will before 1974 and after consideration decided not to accept Nygaard’s gift of the sculptures he had made.  In 1976 the will was changed.

At the end of the 1960s Nygaard had discussed his intention to make a large donation of sculptures with childhood friends Arne B. Nilssen and Haakon Thallaug.  Both men were involved for many years in the administration and care of Maihaugen and encouraged Nygaard to give his collection to the Museum.  Nilssen was of the opinion that, “Anything other than positive results are unthinkable.”
In 1973 journalist Anders Sandvig, a relative of the Museum’s founder, wrote in Norway’s Verdens Gang newspaper that Maihaugen would receive a valuable sculpture collection. It consisted of over one hundred sculptures which Nygaard suggested could be located in proximity to the Museum’s display of traditional craft workshops. This location was chosen so as to avoid any awkward discussion about the collection’s artistic quality.  An alternative could be to place the sculptures within a planned- exhibit of Lillehammer’s old town buildings.

In 1974 Sandvig sought after a solution. He wrote a letter to the Museum’s organization of volunteer supporters, De Sandvigske Samlingers Venner, asking their opinion as to what should happen in this situation. The letter was sent on to the Museum’s board of directors.  At the same time correspondence passed between Nygaard and his two friends. They suggested that he should send a few samples of his sculpture so Museum administrators could see what was being discussed.  Nygaard thought the proposal too expensive and difficult to carry out.

The issue was never fully debated by the Museum’s board but it became clear afterward that the Museum did not wish to accept the collection.  The reasons were two fold.  Firstly, it could be argued that the sculpture collection did not fit naturally within Maihaugen’s chartered intention. Secondly, it was not expedient to accept a collection that carried with it economic demands – for example, shipping costs.

For Nygaard it was a bitter pill to swallow. It was he himself who finally put an end to the issue.  In a letter to Nilssen and Thallaug in 1975 he wrote, “Dear friends, let the whole thing go.  I am not on a quest to conquer the art establishment in Lillehammer.  A surgeon shouldn’t spoil the landscape or he’ll come to be remembered for the scar seen by someone intending to take a refreshing bath.  I can hardly give Maihaugen a scar of that type, even though I think that often scars can look fine.” That was in 1975; in 1976 he changed his will so that Maihaugen would no longer inherit.

Source:
Eidsvåg, Inge, Henders gjerning, Lillehammer 1993.