[1] Tidemand-Johannessen received his artistic education at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry 1935–37 under Per Krohg, and made his debut at Høstutstillingen in Oslo in 1936.
Tidemand-Johannessen then began studies at the Berlin University of the Arts, but was expelled by the Nazi management of the academy after three weeks for allegedly being a "Degenerate artist".
[2] During World War II, Tidemand-Johannessen participated in the defense of Norway in 1940, and then in the Norwegian resistance to the German occupation.
[4] Tidemand-Johannessen was editor-in-chief of the magazine Avant-garden, which was published by the Young Communist League of Norway until the liberation from German occupation in 1945.
[9] Tidemand-Johannessen was known for his experimental approach to both process and expression, and his own visual vocabulary evolved to a large extent during his relatively few years as a practicing printmaker.
[citation needed] The series deals with subjects drawn from the country's National Romanticist movement of the nineteenth century, by way of images from different and contrasting regions of Norway, in a rejuvenated design idiom and with specific themes associated with each month of the year.
[13] [14][15] Tidemand-Johannessen built, prepared and carved the original wood panels for printing bookbinding designs for a number of books for several publishing houses in Oslo.
This exhibition received a favorable review from Bonytt, an established Norwegian magazine of arts and interior design.
[16] In the 1950s, Tidemand-Johannessen designed a table-service for Stavangerflint, produced in a limited commemorative edition for Norges Kooperative Landsforening.
[17] In the first years after the war, Tidemand-Johannessen wrote a short-story collection and two novels, published by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag: Vi syntes ikke det hastet (1945); Prolog over en avdød kjærlighet.