Anna Ancher

Anna Ancher (1859-1935) was one of the greatest Danish painters of her age. ARKEN’s exhibitiAnna Ancher Old Resting Woman, ca 1886on zeroes in on the modernity of her work. Anna Ancher was more than just a prodigious Skagen painter who happened to be a woman. She was an internationally oriented artist who was acutely attuned to the currents of the day.

Anna Ancher was the first among her Danish peers to take up pastels, a technique the French Impressionists were reviving in 1880s Paris. The exhibition will bring together the greatest possible number of Anna Ancher’s pastels, allowing us to trace her rapid development in this technique and compare the pastels to her drawings, oil sketches and oil paintings.

Anna Ancher investigated the world around her, and her perception of it. She depicted the villagers of Skagen and the unique light in this Danish fishing hamlet, recording its effects on colors and planes. Her paintings, constructed from finely sensed details, still have tremendous presence today. She collected her subjects within a radius of five minutes by foot from her house in Skagen. In her best works, Anna Ancher is the most modern of all the Skagen painters.

Anna Ancher