Anna Ancher
dal 25/1/2011 al 4/6/2011
Segnalato da
25/1/2011
Anna Ancher
Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishoj
In 112 paintings, oil sketches and pastels, the exhibition highlights Ancher as the most modern of all the Skagen painters. This is especially evident in her ability to register the refraction and reflection of light striking surfaces, as she captured fugitive moments on canvas. Anna Ancher was the first artist in Denmark to take up the medium of pastels, concurrently with the French Impressionists. The exhibition presents both familiar and hitherto unknown pastels by Anna Ancher.
On 29 January, ARKEN is opening its ANNA ANCHER exhibition, offering visitors an intimate look at this internationally oriented artist and Skagen native. In 112 paintings, oil sketches and pastels, the exhibition highlights Anna Ancher as the most modern of all the Skagen painters. This is especially evident in her ability to register the refraction and reflection of light striking surfaces, as she captured fugitive moments on canvas.
Anna Ancher’s art career is unique. In her day, it was quite unusual for a woman to get an art education. From the wind-swept fishing hamlet where she grew up as the daughter of the local hotel owner, she journeyed to Copenhagen to take private lessons at the Drawing School for Women under the instruction of the painter Vilhelm Kyhn.
A member of Skagen’s artists’ colony, Anna Ancher first took inspiration from her male colleagues. From the outset, her works displayed her international orientation and in 1885 she made her first trip to Paris, the hub from which new theories about light, colour and materials radiated.
Anna Ancher was the first artist in Denmark to take up the medium of pastels, concurrently with the French Impressionists. ARKEN’s exhibition presents both familiar and hitherto unknown pastels by Anna Ancher. Working with the media, ARKEN issued a call for pastels by the artist and to date eight authentic pastels of high artistic quality have emerged as a result of the announcement. This is the first time they will go on public display. ARKEN’s exhibition will give museumgoers a chance to compare the pastels and sketches with the finished oil paintings through first-hand glimpses into the artist’s painting technique and imagery.
While her male colleagues in Skagen cultivated the art of self-portraiture, Anna Ancher in her lifetime painted just one self-portrait. She ventured far and wide in her investigation of the world and her own senses in quiet scenes from Skagen.
Catalogue
ARKEN is producing a research-based exhibition catalogue featuring essays by Ancher specialist and senior researcher Elisabeth Fabritius, who here for the first time is collecting her knowledge about the links between French art and Anna Ancher. Lilian Munk Rösing, PhD in comparative literature, discusses what Ancher’s works can tell us about ourselves today. Finally, ARKEN curator Andrea Rygg Karberg provides an overview of the concept behind the exhibition. The 96-page catalogue, which includes 82 colour illustrations, will be published in Danish as well as English in a total edition of 7,000 copies.
Photo credits: Anna Ancher, The Seamstress’ Head, Ane, 1890. Private collection
Contact information:
Head of Communications Helle Qvistgaard, phone.: +45 43573410 hq@arken.dk
Press conference on Wednesday 26 January, 2011 at 12:00 noon
Please confirm your attendance to Lea Bolvig lb@arken.dk or Helle Qvistgaard hq@arken.dk Thursday 20 January at the latest.
Arken Museum of Modern Art
Skovvej 100, Ishoj Danimarca
Opening hours Tuesday-Sunday 10-17
Wednesday 10-21, Monday closed