The Entrance to our Garden

The painting depicts the entrance to Anchers Hus, the home of Anna and Michael Ancher on Markvej in Skagen.

Anna Ancher was a Danish artist associated with the Skagen Painters, an artist colony on the northern tip of Jutland, Denmark, and is considered one of the country's greatest visual artists. Born Anna Kirstine Brøndum in Skagen, she was the only member of the Skagen Painters actually born and raised there, growing up at her father's Brøndums Hotel, where she encountered the many artists who came to paint the area's distinctive light.

In 1880, she married painter Michael Ancher, whom she had met in Skagen; the couple had one daughter, Helga. Despite social pressure for married women to abandon careers for domestic life, Ancher continued painting throughout her marriage. Celebrated as both a character painter and colorist, Ancher's work helped define Nordic art's modern breakthrough toward truthful, unsentimental depictions of everyday life. She favored interior scenes and simple subjects drawn from the daily lives of Skagen's fishermen, women, and children, with a sustained focus on light and color.

P.S. If you're interested in getting to know her a little bit more, here's Anna Ancher in 10 paintings! Also, you can see more of her works in our Women Artists postcards collection.  :)