Bodil Cappelen (born April 26, 1930) is a Norwegian painter, textile artist, and book illustrator. She has also written children's books.
Cappelen was born in Stavanger, the daughter of Johan Munthe Cappelen from Oslo and Edith Heiberg from Leikanger. Her father was a judge and was known for his dissenting opinion in the acquittal of Police Chief Knut Rød after the Second World War. Bodil grew up with two sisters: Lotte Cappelen Thiis and Eli Heiberg. She attended the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry from 1948 to 1951.
Cappelen's first marriage was to the author and painter Finn Strømsted. The couple had two children, Aili Strømsted and Rune Cappelen Strømsted. From 1975 to 1994, Cappelen first lived with and then married the poet Olav H. Hauge in Ulvik in Hardanger. They were married on January 27, 1978. From 1977 to 1997 Cappelen was supported by a government guaranteed income for artists.
In the 1970s Cappelen had many solo exhibitions of tapestries, and between 1968 and 1982 she also participated many times in the Southern Norway Exhibition (Sørlandsutstillingen), the Western Norway Exhibition (Vestlandsutstillingen), and the Autumn Exhibition with tapestries.
After her last solo exhibition at the Artists' House gallery in 1981, Cappelen decided to illustrate children's books. She has illustrated five books for the Sami publisher Davvi Girji in Karasjok, with two of them featuring her own text. She also illustrated the book Norske barnerim og regler (Norwegian Children's Rhymes and Songs; Aschehoug 1984). In cooperation with Olav H. Hauge, she published the primer ABC, with editions appearing in 1986, 1987, 1995, and 2008.