The Skagen Painters () were a group of Scandinavian artists who gathered in the village of Skagen, the northernmost part of Denmark, from the late 1870s until the turn of the century. Skagen was a summer destination whose scenic nature, local milieu and social community attracted northern artists to paint en plein air, emulating the French Impressionists—though members of the Skagen colony were also influenced by Realist movements such as the Barbizon school. They broke away from the rather rigid traditions of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, espousing the latest trends that they had learned in Paris. Among the group were Anna and Michael Ancher, Peder Severin Krøyer, Holger Drachmann, Karl Madsen, Laurits Tuxen, Marie Krøyer, Carl Locher, Viggo Johansen and Thorvald Niss from Denmark, Oscar Björck and Johan Krouthén from Sweden, and Christian Krohg and Eilif Peterssen from Norway. The group gathered together regularly at the Brøndums Hotel.
Skagen, in the very north of Jutland, was the largest fishing community in Denmark, with more than half of its population engaged. Among the locals, fishermen were by far the most common subject for the Skagen painters. Skagen's long beaches were exploited in the group's landscapes; P.S. Krøyer, one of the best known of the Skagen painters, was inspired by the light of the evening "blue hour", which made the water and sky seem to optically merge. This is captured in one of his most famous paintings, Summer Evening at Skagen Beach – The Artist and his Wife (1899). Although the painters had their own individual styles without any requirement to adhere to a common approach or manifest, one of their common interests was to paint scenes of their own social gatherings, playing cards, celebrating or simply eating together.
Michael Ancher drew attention to the attractions of the area when his Will He Round the Point? (1885) was purchased by King Christian IX. He married Anna Brøndum, the only member of the group from Skagen, who became a pioneering female artist at a time when women were not permitted to study at Denmark's Royal Academy. Today the Skagens Museum, founded in the dining room at Brøndum's Hotel in October 1908, hosts many of their works of art, some 1,800 pieces in total. Many of the paintings have been digitized under the Google Art Project and are accessible online. Related exhibitions continue to be held; in 2008, the Arken Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen presented "The Skagen Painters—In a New Light", and in 2013, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. presented "A World Apart: Anna Ancher and the Skagen Art Colony".
History
The first notable artist to paint in Skagen was Martinus Rørbye (1803–1848), one of the central figures of the Golden Age of Danish Painting. His first visit was in 1833 but he returned towards the end of his life in 1847 and 1848. He is remembered in particular for his Men of Skagen on a Summer Evening in Fair Weather painted in 1848. Another marine painter, Vilhelm Melbye (1824–1882), visited Skagen in 1848, painting his View over Skagen. According to Karl Madsen, the painter Peter Raadsig (1806–1882) also visited the town on several occasions between 1862 and 1870, painting the dunes and the fishermen. Christian Blache (1838–1920), another marine painter, first visited Skagen in 1869 when he painted his Grey Lighthouse. It was as a result of his influence that the poet and dramatist Holger Drachmann first visited the town in 1871.
In the 1860s and 1870s, despite evolving trends in Europe, especially in Paris, embracing Realism and Impressionism, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts refused to change their approach, insisting their students should continue to paint in the preferred styles of Historicism and Neoclassicism. Among those who were increasingly frustrated by this approach were Michael Ancher, Karl Madsen and Viggo Johansen who in the early 1870s were studying at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. Madsen, who had already visited Skagen in 1871 while staying with his uncle in nearby Frederikshavn, invited Ancher to join him there in 1874, to paint the local fishermen. Ancher became a friend of the Brøndum family, who had a shop with a bar which was soon extended to become Brøndums Gastgiveri, a guest house. He was invited to their 15-year-old daughter Anna's confirmation and showed an immediate interest in her. The following year, he returned to Skagen with both Madsen and Viggo Johansen, who had been strongly influenced by French Impressionism. In particular, Johansen began to paint open-air scenes combining Impressionism with Realism.
In 1876 and especially in 1877, several other artists spent the summer in Skagen, using the Brøndums' house for accommodation and their frequent gatherings. Michael Ancher made Skagen his new home. He became engaged to Anna Brøndum in 1878 and married her in 1880. Their home then became a focal point for the artists, especially after King Christian IX bought Ancher's painting Will He Round the Point?. Anna Ancher first took a serious interest in painting after the artists began to stay in her family's inn, leaving their paintings to dry in their rooms when they left for the day. She studied them carefully and in 1875 attended Vilhelm Kyhn's art school in Copenhagen. She was later influenced by Christian Krohg, who taught her the art of painting people in their everyday lives and making full use of colour. Krohg first came to Skagen in the summer of 1878, encouraged by Georg Brandes, whom he had met in Berlin. He brought many of the latest international art trends with him, influencing the other members of the group. His encounters with the local population also exerted a strong influence on his own work.
In 1882, the Anchers travelled abroad. While they were in Vienna, they met P.S. Krøyer, who informed them he would also be going to Skagen that year, despite the fact that Ancher was apparently not too keen to have him there. Krøyer, who had enjoyed close contacts with several Impressionist artists in Paris, immediately became the central member and unofficial leader of the artists' colony. In 1883, he created the "Evening Academy" where the artists gathered to paint and discuss each other's work, often enjoying champagne.Alba Schwartz, "Skagen – Den nye Tid i Oplevelser og Indtryk", Skagens Museum, 1992, pp 117–120. In 1884, the German painter Fritz Stoltenberg took photographs of the artists celebrating in the Anchers' garden, just after the couple had moved into their new home. One of these photos in particular inspired Krøyer to paint Hip, Hip, Hurrah!, which took him four years to complete.
In 1890, the railway's arrival in Skagen not only led to the expansion of the village but also brought in considerable numbers of tourists. It was largely responsible for breaking up the regular summer meetings of the artists as they could no longer find suitable accommodation or venues for their meetings. However, some of them purchased homes in Skagen: P.S. Krøyer in 1894, Laurits Tuxen in 1901 and Holger Drachmann in 1903.Mona Jensen (editor), "Danske kunstnerkolonier. Skagen. Fyn. Bornholm", Aarhus Kunstmuseums Forlag, 2000.
Anna and Michael Ancher, Krøyer and Tuxen continued to paint in Skagen until well into the 20th century and were occasionally joined by their earlier friends. Two core members of the group, Drachmann and Krøyer, died in 1908 and 1909, bringing the traditional gatherings of the group to an end. There were nevertheless other painters, sometimes referred to as the younger group of Skagen painters, who continued to visit the area. They included Jørgen Aabye, Tupsy and Gad Frederik Clement, Ella Heide, Ludvig Karsten, Frederik Lange and Johannes Wilhjelm, some of whom settled in the area until the 1930s or even later. Skagens Museum has a number of their works in its collection. Another notable artist who visited Skagen from 1906 was J.F. Willumsen, who painted Children Bathing on Skagen Beach in 1909.
Family relationships
The Skagen painters quickly began to form a close-knit community as relationships grew between the artists and the young women from the area. In 1880, Michael Ancher married Anna Brøndum from the guest house, Viggo Johansen married Martha Møller, Anna's cousin, and Karl Madsen married Henriette Møller, Martha's sister. Henriette died the next year in giving birth to a boy, named Henry Sofus Madsen (1881–1921). Until Karl Madsen remarried, Martha helped to take care of the boy. The house the Anchers moved into in 1884 became a focus for the artists' colony, especially as the couple lived there all the year round. When their daughter Helga (the little girl in Hip, Hip, Hurrah!) died in 1964, she left the house to a foundation which soon turned it into a museum. The Johansens acquired a large family between 1881 and 1886: Ellen Henriette (who became an artist and was presumably named after Martha's sister Henriette who died in childbirth three months earlier), Fritz, Lars, Gerda and Bodil. They can be seen dancing around the Christmas tree in Johansen's painting Merry Christmas.
Another key figure in Skagen, P.S. Krøyer, married Marie Triepcke after falling in love with her in Paris in 1888. The daughter of a prosperous German loomery engineer, she was said to be the most beautiful woman in Copenhagen. However, as the years went by, Krøyer's health began to deteriorate and Marie was increasingly unhappy with their marriage. The marriage finally ended in a divorce in 1905 when Marie became pregnant after an affair with the composer Hugo Alfvén, whom she then married. Krøyer died in Skagen four years later, apparently as a result of mental illness.
In 1901, after the death of his first wife Ursule, Laurits Tuxen married Frederikke Treschow, a Norwegian, and shortly afterwards purchased Madam Bendsen's house in Skagen where first Viggo and Martha Johansen and later Marie and P.S. Krøyer had stayed in the 1880s. He converted it into a stately summer residence. Michael Ancher and Laurits Tuxen died in 1927, Anna Ancher and Viggo Johansen in 1935.
Members of the group
The principal Danish painters included Karl Madsen, Laurits Tuxen, Marie Krøyer, Carl Locher, Viggo Johansen, Thorvald Niss, and most notably, Anna and Michael Ancher and Peder Severin Krøyer. There were also painters from the rest of Scandinavia including Oscar Björck and Johan Krouthén from Sweden and Christian Krohg and Eilif Peterssen from Norway. The gatherings in Skagen were not restricted to painters. The Danish writers Georg Brandes, Holger Drachmann and Henrik Pontoppidan and the Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén were also members of the group.Vibeke Sandby, Pernille and Jens Agerholm, "Skagens trofaste veninde", Agenholm, 2000.
A number of other artists also joined the Skagen Painters for shorter periods. From Denmark they included Vilhelm Kyhn, Einar Hein and Frederik Lange, from Norway Frits Thaulow, Charles Lundh and Wilhelm Peters, from Sweden Wilhelm von Gegerfelt and Anna Palm de Rosa, from Germany Fritz Stoltenberg and Julius Runge, and from England Adrian Stokes and his Austrian-born wife, Marianne Stokes. The Danish composer Carl Nielsen and his wife Anne Marie, a sculptor, also spent summers in Skagen and eventually bought a summerhouse there."Family life", Carl Nielsen Society. Retrieved 29 August 2010.
Anna Ancher