P.S. Krøyer
For the next four Saturdays we will be presenting masterpieces from Skagens Museum in Denmark, which exhibits an extensive collection of works by members of the colony of Skagen Painters who lived and worked in the area in the late 19th and early 20th century. We hope you will love these paintings as much as we do :)
Krøyer was already a famous artist when he first came to Skagen in 1882, and his presence attracted attention to the artists’ colony in Skagen. In 1889, he married the artist Marie Triepcke. In 1894, the couple were allowed to rent and rebuild the old town recorder’s residence in Skagen’s Plantation – which is known today as Krøyer’s House. The following year, Marie gave birth to their daughter, Vibeke. She stayed with her father in Skagen when Marie and Krøyer divorced in 1906. Krøyer’s House served as a museum from 1911 to 1940 when the lease agreement was terminated, and today it is only possible to visit the house on Wednesdays during the summer months. In the 1880s, P.S. Krøyer painted several atmospheric pictures on the beaches around Skagen, in which he depicted various light effects, and this image ushered in a theme that was very important for Krøyer’s painting at the turn of the century: the blue-toned picture, partly inspired by Japanese art, including woodcuts. For many artists, Japanese woodcuts represented an unspoiled purity and had a great deal of influence in the development of modern painting. In Japanese woodcuts, the lines and the clearly defined surface comprise a decorative whole. Krøyer was very inspired by these motifs and modes of composition, something that is particularly evident in his paintings of the 1890s.