The portfolio of illustrations for Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, published in 1985 by Clot, Bramsen and Georges in Paris, is a cardinal work in Widerberg’s print production. The folio includes 10 full-page images in colour and twenty smaller vignettes in black and white on the text pages. It belongs to the French livre d’artiste tradition and is produced in a leather bound deluxe format, with hand-set typography.

The theme and character of the work suited Widerberg who said “There is a Peer Gynt in all of us. I have found pictures in the text that I feel can express my own feelings. I try to give each of the pictures content. For me the images are in line with what I have always been doing. I can draw on material that is a continuation of what I have created earlier.”

As with the Salome series of illustrations in 1964, Widerberg concentrated on creating pictures which capture specific critical plots or important aspects of the characters, but they are interpretations rather than illustrations of Ibsen’s text, which have been translated into Widerberg’s own pictorial visions.