Vilhelmine “Ville” Jais Nielsen (née Oppenheim) is born in Randers in 1886. At the age of 19, she moves to Copenhagen and begins her education, first as a student at the Danish School of Drawing and Art for Women, then as an apprentice at Georg Jensen’s Silver Media and later as a porcelain painter at Bing & Grøndahl in the years 1910–12. She then travels to Paris, where she is taught by the French artist Othon Friesz.

Ville Jais Nielsen’s outlook and education are seen in her works, where both Fauvism and Cubism work side by side with classical modernism. In 1920, she marries the painter and ceramist Jais Nielsen, but has to leave her husband and children in the years 1943–45, when, with her Jewish background, she is forced to flee to Stockholm. She stays there for the rest of the war, but finds both friendships and learning in the Swedish art community.

Ville Jais Nielsen receives the Eckersberg Medal in 1947. Her works are represented in several Danish museums.