The Skagen Painters (Danish: Skagensmalerne) 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.
Peder Severin Krøyer | Summer Evening at Skagen Beach - The Artist and his Wife, 1899 | Hirschsprung Collection
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 so 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; Peder Severin 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 | Will He Round the Point? (Danish: Vil han klare pynten?), 1880 | Skagens Museum
Michael Ancher drew attention to the attractions of the area when his Will He Round the Point? (1880) 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.
.jpg)
Anna Ancher | Room with light blue curtains and Blue Clematis, 1913
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.
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".
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.
Marie Krøyer | Self portrait, 1890-91
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.
Peder Severin Krøyer | Hip Hip Hurrah! Artist Festival at Skagen, 1888 | Gothenburg Museum of Art
Skagen Artists at Tutt'Art@
Peder Severin Krøyer | Summer Evening on Skagen's Southern Beach, 1893
Pittori di Skagen (in danese: Skagensmalerne) è il nome attribuito ad un gruppo di artisti della Danimarca che furono attivi verso la fine del XIX secolo nel centro abitato di Skagen, villaggio costiero nel comune di Frederikshavn, sull'isola di Vendsyssel-Thy, nello Jutland settentrionale.
I principali esponenti di questa cerchia pittorica furono Michael Ancher, sua moglie Anne, e, soprattutto, Peder Severin Krøyer.
Movimento artistico non lontano dall'impressionismo, gli Skagensmalerne diedero vita ad un circolo pittorico locale e raccolsero molte delle loro opere riunendole in un'esposizione permanente da loro ideata, il Museo di Skagen.
Nel 1886 la comunità dei pittori di Skagen accolse anche il paesaggista inglese Adrian Scott Stokes e sua moglie Marianne.
Michael Ancher | Anna Ancher returning from the field, 1902 | Skagens Museum
![](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PEA6zlrSZtg/X_930Y1W_bI/AAAAAAAG7g0/cAlR16TZ2oIRhDZu0ZD66-m6FdF4fICWACPcBGAsYHg/s0/Facebook.png" "Condividi su Facebook")
