Skagen Painters

Continuing with the story of the Skagen Painters, let me begin with Anna Ancher (1859-1935). 

Self-portrait, 1877-78

References are made to her early artistic abilities, though this became more apparent after she met Michael Ancher when he was staying at her parents' hotel.  She was fifteen.  She did, however, study drawing in Copenhagen the following year, and then Paris, where she studied side by side with another Danish girl, Marie Triepcke.

Anna & Marie

Michael returned the following summer with his two school chums Viggo Johansen and Karl Madsen to paint the fishermen and beach scenes.  Other artists arrived to paint the fabled light of Skagen and explore the en plein air adventure.  At first every one stayed at Brondom's, but some found their own places and some settled there.

Wall now in Skagen Museum.

Anna married Michael in 1880 and had a daughter, Helga, but continued to paint and become known as one of Denmark's greatest pictorial artists.  Her subjects were the men and women of Skagen.  Michael was more than a few years older than Anna, and had studied at the Royal Academy and would go on to become one of Denmark’s most popular painters.

Anna

In 1882, they met P.S. Kroyer when they were in Vienna.  Kroyer (1851-1909) was born in Norway, but moved to Copenhagen and attended the Royal Academy in 1870.  Though he had been traveling for the past four years, he immediately returned to Denmark and found his way to Skagen.  Having studied with some of the great Parisian Impressionists, Kroyer soon became a leading voice for the colony.  The next year he started the Evening Academy, where artists got together to paint and discuss each other’s work while enjoying a glass of wine or champagne.

On a trip to Paris in 1888 Kroyer ran into the previously mentioned Marie Triepcke at a bar frequented by Danish artists.  They were married the following year, and settled in Skagen where they had a daughter, Vibeke, like Michael and Anna.

Marie

Double Portrait by P.S. and Marie Kroyer

In the meantime, Viggo Johansen married Anna’s cousin and Karl Madsen married a local schoolteacher.  Another significant member of the community was Laurits Tuxen.  Though he went to the Academy with Kroyer, he didn’t settle in Skagen until after his first wife died in 1901.

Laurits Tuxen

The famous composer Carl Nielsen and his wife Anne Marie, a sculptor, also spent summers in Skagen and eventually bought a summerhouse there.  Anne Marie did the statue of the Danish fisherman & rescuer shown on the main post.

Yvonne Tuxen, Vibeke Krøyer, and  unknown woman