The Hills are Alive: Freya Grand’s Landscapes

“Natural forms have a voice, have a pulse,” artist Freya Grand told NMWA visitors on International Women’s Day, as she talked about her works on view in Minding the Landscape.

The exhibition showcases enlivening paintings and drawings of mountains, seashores, and plains, subjects drawn from her extensive travels.

Grand traces the “conversion experience” that started her landscape painting to a fateful hiking trip in the Andes in 2000. She realized that nature was “the most authentic thing I could explore.” From that point on, she describes, “I try to absorb [natural forms], possess them, make them my own.”

Immersed in her own emotions and associations, Freya’s works are painted memories of her experiences.

In Glen Etive, she conveys the melancholy quality of Scotland by depicting its craggy mountain peaks, just barely visible under a layer of thick, milky fog. Grand says the landscape helped her to “understand the wailing, mournful sound of bagpipes.”

Tungurahua, 2011; Oil on canvas, 48 x 60 in.; Image courtesy of the artist

The large-scale painting Tungurahua exemplifies her ability to capture the ominous beauty of a place. Depicting the “business end” of the Peruvian volcano, Grand visually links its “blunt power” and “lush, sensual beauty” through fluid brushstrokes and luminous colors.

Grand’s small block paintings—“the excerpted pieces of the movie of where I’d been”—feel to the viewer like “looking through a small aperture.”

These compressed works offer a complement to her large paintings on canvas. Exploring a variety of perspectives, they range from long-distance glimpses to abstracted close-ups and bird’s-eye-views, providing a whirlwind impression of Grand’s journeys.  In one series of surging seascapes, the “mood of the water and architecture of wave shapes” is evident.

Where “travels are the research,” Grand collects photos, notes, and sketches from her trips to later translate onto her canvas.

NMWA presents works that illustrate the breadth of Grand’s process, including rarely-exhibited drawings (she confesses, “I don’t usually show them…they are records for me”).

Drifting over a scarred African desert in Burning Fields or peering through mist to the twinkling waterways of Obstruction Point, viewers are transported in Freya Grand’s animated landscapes.

—Emily Haight is the publications and marketing/communications intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. 

Through Artists’ Eyes: Skagen Painters as Models

Anna Ancher is the face of A World Apart, but hers is not the only visage gracing canvases. The Skagen artists painted the local townspeople but also modeled for each other’s works. These portraits provide glimpses into artists’ interrelationships within the colony.

Anna Ancher, The new hunting boots, 1903

Anna Ancher used her husband Michael Ancher as the subject of several of works set inside their home, depicting him dining in Breakfast before the hunt, painting in Michael Ancher before an easel, and deliberating between shoe options in The new hunting boots. The latter provides a humorous narrative, poking fun at Michael’s indecisiveness over a trivial matter while emphasizing his paunchy belly. Anna’s unflattering depiction of her husband is harmless and signifies the couple’s easy relationship.

In Michael’s Anna Ancher returning from the field, the Skagen native wears a loose-fitting dress and straw hat. Michael portrayed her as active and content while confidently meeting the viewer’s gaze. The sunny composition exemplifies Michael’s talents and reflects his warm relationship with his wife.

In contrast, P.S. Krøyer’s Summer Evening in Skagen depicts a melancholy woman—the artist’s wife, Marie Krøyer. Elegant but reserved, she is shown turned from the viewer. Her fashionable dress pops against the blue expanse behind her. Perhaps Krøyer’s rendering of Marie’s wistful beauty alludes to their troubled relationship.

(Left) Michael Ancher, Anna Ancher returning from the field, 1902; (Right) P.S. Krøyer , Summer evening at Skagen, 1892

The tightly-knit artists portrayed each other as artistic and societal equals—or rivals. In By the fireside (Portrait of Holger Drachmann with a red fez), Krøyer depicts his fellow artist with polish and pomp. Rendered with all the trappings of a distinguished individual, Drachmann sports shiny shoes and an eccentric red fez. Framed art clutters the walls of his comfortable room, and various pipes lay scattered on a side table.

P.S. Krøyer, By the fireside (Portrait of Holger Drachmann with a red fez)

The work seems to present a collaborative, lively friendship. Much to Drachmann’s displeasure, however, Krøyer was frequently ill and took longer than expected to finish the painting. Unsympathetic, Drachmann expressed his frustrations at the amount of time he’d spent modeling for Krøyer:

 “Let us not beat about the bush. It will be completely impossible for me to give you more than at the most a further week to finish the painting…I must again have my days and evenings completely at my disposal. I, too, must live by my work…One must be economical with other people’s time and strength—and you are not.” ¹

Drachmann’s lack of compassion for Krøyer’s afflictions may be due, in part, to his resentment of Krøyer’s reputation as the most famous talent of the colony.

Anna Ancher, Old man whittling sticks, (Fisherman Lars Gaihede), 1880

In contrast to the artists’ grand depictions of one another, the show also features small portraits of rustic townspeople, including Anna Ancher’s unidealized portrayal of a fisherman in Old man whittling sticks. With serious faces against stark backgrounds, they are shown in a “no frills” manner. Conversely, Skagen painters also elevated fishermen as heroic subjects for braving the formidable seas.

Connecting faces with names, A World Apart offers visitors the rare opportunity to understand the works of these Skagen painters, both as artists and as models.

—Emily Haight is the publications and marketing/communications intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Notes:

1. Svanholm, L. (2004). Northern Light: The Skagen Painters. Denmark: Gyldendal, p. 184.

Women and the 1913 Armory Show—Part 2: Women Artists

(This is Part 2 of a series in honor of Women’s History Month and the 100th anniversary of the Armory Show—click here for Part 1, on women patrons!)

Surprisingly, 50 of the 300 artists exhibiting at the Armory Show in 1913 were women. With few exceptions, these women are not known to most art historians today, yet many exhibited their work in various venues before and after this pivotal event. Several of them studied either at the Art Students League in New York City or at the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with well-known teachers. Some traveled to Europe to further their studies.

Agnes Pelton, Vine Wood, 1913

Looking at their art, we find a wide spectrum—from conventional to strikingly innovative. For instance, following in the tradition of the applied arts, Jean Eels presented a cabinet of her hand-painted china and Fannie Brown displayed her embroidery. Several of the women artists, who worked as illustrators, had drawings and prints on display.

In contrast, Agnes Pelton’s entry Vine Wood shows her interest in ethereal figures set in dreamlike environments that recall Symbolist imagery. Pelton moved on to pure abstraction as her career developed. Louise Pope was considered a Cubist—one reviewer called her work barbaric and described it as “prophecies of subway explosions.”¹ Futurist painter Frances Stevens exhibited Roof Tops in Madrid, which she painted while studying with Robert Henri in Spain. She became the only American to exhibit in Italy with the Futurists.²

Nine of the women worked in sculpture, which, due to its physical nature, was an area of art often reserved for men. Enid Yandell, who studied with Auguste Rodin in Paris, contributed two pieces at the Armory Show that revealed her interest in classical themes. Ethel Myers, perhaps influenced by the Ashcan school, specialized in satirical statuettes portraying everyday life. Edith Burroughs began her study of sculpture when she was only 15 years old and began supporting herself through her art in New York City at the age of 18.

Abastenia Eberle, The White Slave, shown in the 1913 Armory Show

Several women artists responded to a masculinized modern art that privileged individual expression over social activism in a way that expands our definition of American modern art. The work of sculptor Abastenia Eberle is a case in point. She settled in lower Manhattan in order to capture the lives of immigrants living in tenement housing. In the Armory Show, Eberle displayed two pieces, one depicting a man auctioning off a young nude child—her response to the evils of organized prostitution.

These few examples reveal the diversity of work offered by women artists in the Armory Show. The varied nature of their art illustrates the transitional period in which they found themselves—between the limits of the Victorian period and the freedoms of the roaring twenties, between the confines of the private domestic sphere and the brave leap into the public one.

The women artists of the Armory Show are still largely unknown. One hundred years later, their work is worthy of consideration.

—Jenny Shircliff is a doctoral candidate at the University of Louisville researching the role of women in the Armory Show.

Notes:

1. Cited in Mariea Caudill Dennison, “Babies for Suffrage: ‘The Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture by Women Artists for the Benefit of the Woman Suffrage Campaign,’” Woman’s Art Journal, vol. 24, no. 2 (Autumn, 2003–Winter, 2004), 26.

2. “Frances Simpson Stevens 1911.” Dana Hall School, Helen Temple Cooke Library. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.

Danish artist Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen (Part 2 of 2)

(Click here for part 1 of 2!)

Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen

In the early 1890s, Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen aligned with “The Free Exhibition,” a Danish artists’ association that mirrored the pan-European rebellion against conservative art institutions. The group included Harald and Agnes Slott-Møller—good friends of Skagen painters Anna and Michael Ancher—as well as Vilhelm Hammershøi and P.S. Krøyer, one of the most famous artists working in Scandinavia. Anne Marie was the group’s only sculptor; she exhibited frequently with them and soon became a permanent member.Through the association, Anne Marie befriended Anna Ancher, and in 1916 both women founded the Women Artists’ Society—a group of women artists who met frequently in Anne Marie’s studio to discuss art and the challenges they faced as women in the arts.

Throughout her career, Anne Marie perfected the portrayal of animal musculature, creating numerous sculptures of horses and calves that captured lifelike movements—a skill for which she became famous. Appropriately, Anne Marie’s greatest career achievement involved animal imagery: in 1908, a prestigious competition was announced to create an equestrian statue of the recently deceased King Christian IX of Denmark (1818–1906).

Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, King Christian IX Monument, 1927, Christiansborg Palace

Despite her celebrity, she faced discrimination while vying for the prize: as a professor warned her, “even if you model like an angel, you won’t get it. A woman will not be allowed to make a monument.”¹

Shockingly, Anne Marie won, becoming the first Danish woman to create an equestrian monument. She devoted the next 20 years to the sculpture, even renting a studio in Germany to study the specific type of German-bred horse the king rode.

The completed statue, which stands today on the grounds of Christiansborg Castle in Copenhagen, depicts the ruler seated on a handsome stallion whose sinuous pose vividly demonstrates the motion of slowing from a gallop. Anne Marie later created another equestrian statue to honor her husband, who died in 1931; the statue portrays a nude youth with Carl Nielsen’s features playing a pan flute while seated on a wingless Pegasus.

Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, Door handle depicting an angel, 1904, Ribe Cathedral, Denmark

Among other important commissions, Anne Marie created three large doors for the Cathedral in Ribe, Denmark—a 12th century Romanesque structure that underwent a massive, 20-year restoration ending in 1904.

Anne Marie’s massive bronze doors are notable for their small-scale details, including the symbolic depictions of the four evangelists (a lion, an ox, an angel, and an eagle), and imaginative door handles that take the shape of shells, peacocks, and angels.

Nine years later, Anne Marie created a large monument on Ribe Castle Hill dedicated to Queen Dagmar—a 13th century Danish queen whose life, shrouded in myth, came to represent the qualities of an ideal Christian queen.

Upon her death in 1945, Anne Marie left behind a massive oeuvre and an inspirational reputation as a woman artist who deftly transcended gender boundaries. Her confident attitude regarding her career as a sculptor—once considered an exclusively masculine occupation—is nicely summarized in a response she gave to a critic who questioned her area of work: “This is not a question of man or woman. I am an artist.”²

—Raphael Fitzgerald is an art historian and researcher.

Notes:

1. Holmen, G. (1984). Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen and Anne Marie Telmànyi: Mother and Daughter. Woman’s Art Journal, 5(2), p.30.

2. Holmen, G. (1984). Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen and Anne Marie Telmànyi: Mother and Daughter. Woman’s Art Journal, 5(2), p.31.

Danish artist Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen (Part 1 of 2)

 In honor of A World Apart: Anna Ancher and the Skagen Art Colony, we’re researching other delightful, innovative, and interesting Danish women in the arts. Click here to learn more about NMWA’s current exhibition.

One of the most famous Danish sculptors of her time, Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen (née Brodersen; 1863–1945) was a prolific artist who achieved widespread fame during her life, won numerous awards, and became a trendsetter in Danish art.

Born on a farm in South Jutland, Anne Marie grew up with a fondness for animals, and at age 12 modeled her first sculpture of a pet lamb. Despite her parents’ disapproval, she pursued artistic training, attending woodcutting school at age 17, and studied animal anatomy with help from a local veterinarian who gave her animal carcasses to study.

Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, Thor and Midgårdsormen (“the Midgard Serpent”), bronze, 1887

In the early 1880s, Anne Marie moved to Copenhagen and became the private student of August Saabye, professor of sculpture at the Danish Academy of Fine Arts. From then on, Anne Marie’s artistic star began to rise: she exhibited for the first time in 1884 at Charlottenborg (Copenhagen’s only exhibition hall at the time), and at age 24, won first prize in a competition for a fountain piece depicting Thor and Midgårdsormen (“the Midgard Serpent”), a tale from the rich world of Nordic mythology that often inspired her work.

Her first major monument, Thor and Midgårdsormen portrays a pivotal moment when the nude, muscular god of thunder raises his hammer for a deathblow after reeling in the hideous serpent, teeth barred and tongue lashing furiously in protest.

According to myth, Thor and the sea creature—believed to be so long that it circumnavigated the earth—engaged in a battle so colossal that lightning raged between them. On the verge of defeating the serpent, Thor raised his hammer to strike, but the serpent escaped to the ocean floor where, according to myth, it awaits Thor’s vengeful return at Ragnarök, the end of the world. Anne Marie’s vivid portrayal of the masculine, violent scene was unprecedented for a woman artist; in 2007, the work was acquired by Denmark’s Odense City Museums.

Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen (right) with husband Carl Nielsen

In 1888, Anne Marie received a scholarship to the Art School for Women upon its foundation as part of the Academy. Two years later, she traveled to Paris, where she copied Greek statues in the Louvre and spent evenings with a Scandinavian artists’ group.There, she met world-famous composer and violinist Carl Nielsen, to this day considered Denmark’s greatest composer. The two became inseparable and married shortly after in Italy.

Their marriage was one of artistic equality: Anne Marie was free to pursue her art, even when it entailed long absences from home. The couple raised a son and two daughters, one of whom, Anne Marie Telmanyi, became a talented painter.

—Raphael Fitzgerald is an art historian and researcher. 

The Wings of Spring: Avian Imagery at NMWA

A chorus of birds hails the first day of spring, prompting a look at avian imagery in NMWA’s collection.

Gabriele Münter, Breakfast of the Birds, 1934; Oil on board, 18 x 21 ¾ in, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

As a popular motif throughout art history, birds can signify freedom or transition. But keep in mind—these works are no mere flights of fancy.

German expressionist painter Gabriele Münter’s Breakfast of the Birds may indicate this seasonal change. Seated at a breakfast table, a solitary woman gazes through a window at a brood of birds perched on snow-covered branches. Perhaps the snow is melting and migratory birds have just returned. Sometimes interpreted as reflective and peaceful, the figure in this work, with her back to the viewer, has alternatively been seen as isolated and lonely. Scholars have conjectured that the depicted woman may be Münter herself. Münter’s style of heavy lines, simplified forms, and compressed space adds to a feeling of coziness—or entrapment.

Berthe Morisot, The Cage, 1885; Oil on canvas,19 7/8 x 15 in.; Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

Where Münter’s work depicts birds outdoors, Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot’s The Cage includes two enclosed birds. This still-life displays a bronze birdcage and a bowl of flowers set against an otherwise ambiguous background. With a spring-colored palette of soft browns, whites, and greens, Morisot’s oil-on-canvas work takes on a watercolor quality.

Morisot’s paint application is sketchy and unrestrained, due in part to her experimental use of an unprimed canvas. The two nestled birds are nearly lost amid the choppy dabs of color.

Contemporary Brazilian sculptor Frida Baranek’s dense iron construction, Untitled, 1991, resembles a wiry nest. As one of her large-scale abstract metal sculptures, her work explores the tension between organic forms and inorganic materials. Built from rusted industrial wire and weighing 90 pounds, Baranek’s sculpture appears surprisingly light and airy. Long wires protruding horizontally from the sculpture seem to lift the work—like its very own set of wings.

Frida Baranek, Untitled, 1991, Iron, 44 x 75 x 46 in. The Lois Pollard Price Acquisition Fund

What other works in NMWA’s collection conjure images of spring for you?

—Emily Haight is the publications and marketing/communications intern at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

March Highlights at the Library

The next time you visit NMWA, stop by the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center to see books that complement our exhibitions as well as reliable favorites.

I am Anna (left) and NMWA visitors viewing Michael Ancher’s portrait of Anna Ancher, on view in A World Apart

I AM ANNA:  A homage to Anna Ancher (Skagens Museum, 2009)

Inspired by the Anna Ancher exhibition (on view through May 12) and keen to learn more about the artist? The library has several books about Ancher, Skagen, and other female Scandinavian artists. I AM ANNA: A Homage to Anna Ancher, a 2009 exhibition catalogue from Skagens Museum, presents biographical and scholarly insight into this gifted Danish artist. Beautiful color reproductions of her work are organized by 12 themes, complemented by five essays written by authors who have special knowledge of Ancher, each sharing their understanding of her work and life. A highly readable book for both general readers and art historians.

Gee’s Bend: The Women and Their Quilts (Tinwood Books, 2002)

The women of Gee’s Bend, an isolated African-American community in Alabama, are known for their stunningly beautiful, colorful quilts. From the early 20th century to today, multiple generations of quilters have produced hundreds of masterpieces that preserve textile traditions and transform utilitarian handiwork into visual expressions of vibrancy, strength, and creativity.

This is the book that I pull out for anyone interested in inspiration for quilting and African-American art, and it always pleases. Well-researched and produced, this exhibition catalogue treats readers to 546 illustrations (488 of which are in full color) and biographical sketches of the quilters, drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews. It presents more than just a collection of quilts; its aim was to document the culture of Gee’s Bend and the importance of quilts in family and society. We highly recommend this to anyone who loves quilts and colorful art!

We welcome all to stop by to look at these beautiful books in person. We’re open to the public Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–12 p.m. and 1–5 p.m. If you’re touring the museum’s exhibitions, the library makes a great starting point on the fourth floor! In addition to the beautiful books and comfy reading chairs, visitors enjoy interesting library exhibitions featuring artists’ books, archival manuscripts, and rare books. Reference Desk staff are always happy to answer questions and offer assistance. We hope to see you soon!

—Jennifer Page is the library assistant at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.