Anna Ancher painting from the Skagens Museum: “Breakfast before the hunt,” 1903.
Kristina often gives me her Women in the Arts magazine after she’s done with it. This time I was particularly taken with a story on a show in Washington called “A World Apart: Anna Ancher and the Skagen Art Colony.”
DeNeen L. Brown writes that among the 64 paintings and oil sketches, the depiction of light is breathtaking.
She says, “At its height in the 1880s and ’90s, Denmark’s Skagen Art Colony attracted dozens of artists who were drawn to the isolated fishing village by the light and the unspoiled land- and seascapes.
“While the exhibition focuses on Ancher, the most prominent woman, it also includes works by her husband, Michael Ancher, as well as Laurits Tuxen, Viggo Johansen, Christian Krohg, Oscar Bjorck, Holger Drachmann, Carl Locher and P.S. Kroyer, whose large-scale oil paintings capture the ‘heroic’ life of fishermen in Skagen. …
“Ancher, who was the only native of Skagen among the artists in the colony, became an icon in Denmark not only for her art but for breaking social boundaries. She was a wife and mother who painted at a time when most women abandoned work after they married and had children. She also painted during an era when women were prohibited from studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. …
“The Skagen colony artists became known as part of the modern breakthrough movement, shrugging off the academic tradition of neoclassical painting styles preferred at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and building on realist, naturalist and impressionist movements to depict everyday life and everyday people in an unidealized way.” More.
In case you should be in Washington in the next few weeks, the show runs through May 12 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
The Nordic light around Skagen, especially at dusk and dawn, has a different quality to it. In my opinion the Skagen painters were masters of capturing light to create moods, like in P.S. Kroyer “Sommeraften ved skagen strand” (summer night by the skagen beach). If you get a chance to visit Skagen, take a walk along the beach a late evening to experience the summer light and the endless days.
Thanks for commenting, beagling. I was wondering if you knew about the art colony. The light you describe makes me think of Inverness, Scotland, which I still remember decades after my visit there.
come to visit me and we go there
Now, there’s a tempting idea!