Harald Viggo Moltke (14 December 1871 – 24 June 1960) was a Danish painter, author and explorer. As an explorer he acted as draftsman in four Arctic expeditions.
Early life and education
Harald Moltke was born in Helsingør, the son of Oskar Peter August Moltke (1828–82) and Karen Marie Jensdatter (1849–1939). He spent 10 years in North Carolina as a child between 1874 and 1884. After the death of his father, the family returned to Denmark. In 1889, he began a course of study at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, which he completed in 1893.
Career
From May to November 1898, he participated in a geological expedition headed by K. J. V. Steenstrup (1842-1906) to the Disko Bay region at the west coast of Greenland. From this expedition Moltke made paintings of geological structures, a.o., the coast line of Nugsuark Peninsula, and of the Inuit, a.o., "Greenland women in umiak".
During July 1899 to April 1900, Moltke joined an aurora expedition to Akureyri in Iceland.
The expedition was arranged and headed by the director, Adam F. W. Paulsen (1833-1907), of the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI). Further participants were Dan Barfod la Cour (1876-1942), director of DMI 1923–1942, and Ivar B. Jantzen (1875–1961). In Akureyri, Moltke made 19 paintings of auroras and 5 portrait sketches of the expedition members.
