Theme: Female Artists

The quote comes from the artist Ebba Carstensen in The Social Democrat newspaper in 1943. She hits the nail on the head when it came to the female artists of modernism and their different options based on their gender, and that many of the women were later forgotten in the greater narratives of modernism. A large number of works by these women are presented at the current theme auction. In addition to Ebba Carstensen, the names include Regitze Brøndsted, Thyra Boldsen, Rita Kernn-Larsen, Franciska Clausen, Else Fischer-Hansen, Christine Swane, Elisabeth Karlinsky, Franciska Clausen, Else Fischer-Hansen and Else Alfelt. The auction offers many different artistic expressions, and you have the opportunity to dive into a whole treasure trove of ​​materials and motifs – a shared trait is the pictorial quality. Many of these artists were active in the struggle to change the gender inequalities on the Danish art scene. Artists such as Ebba Carstensen and Helvig Kinch helped establish the organization "Kvindelige Kunstneres Samfund" (Society of Female Artists) in 1916, which is a clear example of how women at the time organized themselves in the attempt to achieve equal rights. The organization was, among other things, responsible for the creation of the Croquis School, which allowed women to paint live models. The auction's 32 works by female artists of modernism thus all reflect a generation of artists who, despite the lack of opportunities, have had a significant impact on the Danish art industry – and gender equality.

The 19th-century artists are all represented at the auction and leading the group is Agnes Slott-Møller with a moonlight motif from 1907 of the North Jutland manor Bangsbo, which in the years around the turn of the century became a gathering place for a number of the great Danish thinkers, writers and artists including Herman Bang, Laurits Andersen Ring, Thorvald Bindesbøll and the artist couple Slott-Møller. Agnes Slott-Møller came to play a central role on the contemporary art scene both as a painter and debater. She received her education at the School for Drawing and Applied Art for Women from 1878 to 1885, where she was taught by P.S. Krøyer and her later husband, Harald Slott-Møller. The approach to art was wide – with inspiration from Danish folk songs, medieval art, the Pre-Raphaelites and the British arts and crafts movement, she created both her history-oriented and symbolist works.

Another leading figure among the 19th century female artists was Marie Luplau, and at the auction we find three of her works – a French and a Danish landscape as well as a summer motif with a boy resting in the shade of a farmhouse. She attended Vilhelm Kyhn's School of Drawing and Painting for Women in the early 1870s, while she applied in vain to the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Instead, she travelled with her life partner Emilie Mundt to Munich, where they could far more easily find an outlet for their artistic talents. The two later established an art school in their private home on Frederiksberg, which came to impress an entire generation of female artists.

At the auction, we also have design and decorative art by female designers. This includes the beautiful shell chair "GJ Bow Chair" and three insert tables by Grete Jalk, who was visionary, ambitious and unconventional in her way of thinking and probably one of the female architects who was best able to step out of the shadow of her male colleagues. the dissemination of Danish design – in the 1950s she was a teacher at the Danish School of Arts and Crafts for furniture design, co-organizer of the Cabinetmakers’ Exhibitions and editor of the design bible "Danish furniture art through 40 years, 1927-66". In 1963 her bow-shaped chair won an international design prize and was subsequently purchased by MoMA in New York. From the female artisans, we can this time present two silver saucepans with ivory handles by Ibi Trier Mørch and a large floor vase by Priscilla Mouritzen, and a handwoven gobelin tapestry of nature materials by Grete Balle.