Fritz Syberg

When Fritz Syberg was 2 years old, his father died.  When he was 9, he was rolling chewing tobacco. When he was 13, he became a pig boy on a tenant farm. When he was 18, his mother died in the poorhouse. Far from an unusual childhood in the 19th century. But the young Fritz Syberg possessed special talents, and by way of the different paths he took in Funen he succeeded in being one of the first students accepted into history painter Kristian Zahrtmann’s Kunstnernes Frie Studieskole (The Artists’ Free Study School) in 1885.

Life Depicted on Canvas and Paper
Just a couple of years later, Syberg was commissioned to illustrate Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Story of a Mother” with 18 works (1895–98), which has since been called his artistic monument to maternal love. Fritz Syberg painted things close to his heart, the feelings and moods of everyday life. He soaked up the world around him and visited Paris to experience the Impressionists. He painted his home and his own living rooms on canvas and paper. He portrayed his wife Anna Syberg and their seven children, nature and the surroundings of their home in Pilegården’s garden in Kerteminde.

The Fynbo Painters Fritz Syberg, Peter Hansen and Johannes Larsen
Together with Peter Hansen and Johannes Larsen, Fritz Syberg formed the core of the group known as the Fynbo Painters (which also included Anna Syberg and Alhed Larsen). They met as students at Kristian Zahrtmann’s school in Copenhagen and made their début together at Den Frie Udstilling (the Free Exhibition) in 1894. Unlike the other artists of their day, the Fynbo Painters were deeply rooted in the Danish nature. The Danish landscape, everyday family life and the work of country folk were their motifs of choice. The idiom was predominantly naturalistic – contrary to the work of the symbolists of that day – and the group was derogatorily dubbed the “peasant painters”. Despite provoking outrage and debate in their day, the Fynbo Painters came to play a central role in Danish art history.