Private collection by Carl Fischer

Carl Fischer was a regular and committed participant in the annual exhibitions at Charlottenborg, The Danish Royal Academy. Although also a painter of landscapes, street scenes, flowers and still lifes he was primarily known for his representations of young women in half or full figure in interior settings. Fischer had an eminent ability to capture the personality of the models, who were by the way often members of his family: His wife Ely, his children and grandchildren. Fischer liked to work with simple forms in subdued colours occasionally contrasted by strong colour accents. His style appears thus quite modern and focused on the interplay between form and colour, never however at the expense of the psychological representation.

The paintings are collected through a number of years by the painter Peter Hougaard and his son Frands Hougaard, doctor, who both knew Carl Fischer and his wife privately and much appreciated the artist’s work. Peter Hougaard studied art at the same time as Fischer and the two went to Paris together with the painters Sigurd Kielland Brandt, Axel Simonsen and Robert Storm Petersen (Storm P.). Frands Hougaard kept in contact with the Fischer family and supported the painter who was always short of money. Fischer let his wife handle the sale of his paintings and the couple often had to sell much too cheaply because of an urgent need of cash. After the death of Carl Fischer Frands Hougaard bought several paintings from the widow. Futhermore many of the present paintings were bought on auctions, including Bruun Rasmussen, especially by the end of the 1950s and in the beginning of the 1960s.

Peter and Frands Hougaards fascination with Carl Fischer’s art seems quite far-sighted today. This very fine and representative collection bears traces of the style of the French modernists like for example Paul Cézanne and Raoul Dufy.

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