Exhibited: “Kunst i Randers-Eje”, Randers Kunstforening and Randers Kunstmuseum, 10 August 2013–5 January 2014.

Study for the work “Anse spiller violin” (Anse playing the violin) (1935), Inv. no. 109 in the collection at Willumsens Museum, Frederikssund.

J. F. Willumsen is one of the most significant breakthrough figures of modernism in Danish visual art around the year 1900. He is most frequently highlighted for his pioneering early works from the 1890s, where he was on par with international symbolism, as well as for his vitalist, iconic masterpieces from the turn of the century, “Sol og ungdom” (Sun and Youth) (1902–1910) and, not least, “En bjergbestigerske” (A Mountain Climber) (1904 and 1912). Today, there is an art historical reassessment of the later phases of the artist’s multifaceted production. His works are now viewed through different lenses and appreciated in their own right. This is exemplified in Henrik Wivel’s impressive 2024 monograph on the artist, “Jeg er en anden” (I Am Another). Here, Wivel focuses, among other things, on Willumsen’s consistent self-staging and the artistic portrayal of his close familial relationships, including his partners Juliette Meyer, Edith Wessel, and Michelle Bourret – as well as his children.

The theatrical element is strongly present in the 1929 painting at hand, where his daughter Anne-Mathilde, known as Anse, is depicted in dramatic backlighting and a green-red complementary contrast in front of a slightly transparent curtain or stage backdrop. In his book, Henrik Wivel highlights the version belonging to the Willumsen Museum with a compelling and striking analysis, referencing comic books and popular culture, which had fascinated Willumsen since his first visit to the United States in 1893: “In the backlit image, Willie [Willumsen] electrifies his daughter, outlining her with the contour lines of comic magazines, adorning her with coquettish, oversized eyelashes and the large Disney-style shoes familiar from the universe of Duckburg and its surroundings. Anse seems to be standing on a stage, where the red curtain has been drawn aside, silhouetting her in the strong backlight. A star is born. Anse is depicted as deeply absorbed in her play, but also outwardly as part of media culture’s advertising aesthetics and the comic strip’s humor” (Wivel, p. 199–200).

The artist does not place his daughter on a pedestal, but it comes very close, as she kneels on a stool that, with a bit of imagination, resembles the base of a sculptural monument. Certain similarities in body posture and staging make it difficult not to see connections to 25 years earlier when Willumsen first immortalized a strong and independent woman - his wife Edith, Anse’s mother - as “En bjergbestigerske” (A Mountain Climber). While Edith conquers the external world and nature, Anse masters the inner spaces and, like a virtuoso violinist, commands the tones.