Anna Ancher

Image:Anna Ancher, self-portrait, c. 1877–78.jpg

Anna Kirstine Brøndum was born in Skagen, Denmark, the daughter of Ane Hedvig Møller (1826–1916) and Erik Andersen Brøndum (1820–1890). She was the only one of the Skagen Painters who was born and grew up in Skagen, where her father owned the Brøndums Hotel. The artistic talent of Anna Ancher became obvious at an early age and she became acquainted with pictorial art via the many artists who settled to paint in Skagen, in the north of Jylland.

While she studied drawing for three years at the Vilhelm Kyhn College of Painting in Copenhagen, she developed her own style and was a pioneer in observing the interplay of different colors in natural light. She also studied drawing in Paris at the atelier of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes along with Marie Triepcke, who would marry Peder Severin Krøyer, another Skagen painter.

In 1880 she married fellow painter Michael Ancher, whom she met in Skagen. They had one child, daughter Helga Ancher. Despite pressure from society that married women should devote themselves to household duties, she continued painting after marriage.[https://runeberg.org/dbl/1/0217.html Ancher, Anna Kirstine (Dansk biografisk Lexikon)] {{in lang|da}}

Anna Ancher was considered to be one of the great Danish pictorial artists by virtue of her abilities as a character painter and colorist.[http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Kunst_og_kultur/Billedkunst/Danmark_1850-1910/Anna_Kirstine_Ancher "Anna Ancher"], Den Lille Danske. {{in lang|da}} Retrieved 16 October 2011. Her art found its expression in Nordic art's modern breakthrough toward a more truthful depiction of reality, e.g. in Blue Ane (1882) and The Girl in the Kitchen (1883–1886).[http://www.anchershus.dk/anna_ancher.html "Anna Ancher"], Michael og Anna Anchers Hus. {{in lang|da}} Retrieved 16 October 2011.

Ancher preferred to paint interiors and simple themes from the everyday lives of the Skagen people, especially fishermen, women, and children. She was intensely preoccupied with exploring light and color, as in Interior with Clematis (1913). She also created more complex compositions such as A Funeral (1891). Anna Ancher's works often represented Danish art abroad. Ancher has been known for portraying similar civilians from the Skagen art colony in her works, including an old blind woman.{{Cite web|url=https://hirschsprung.dk/en/collection/theme/samling-skagensmalerne|title=The Skagen Painters - Den Hirschsprungske Samling|website=hirschsprung.dk|access-date=2019-03-02}}

Anna Ancher has been praised for her painting entitled, Sørg (1902), which depicts a blonde long-haired, naked woman on one side of the work, a funerary cross in the middle, and an older pious woman draped in black clothing. The religious context of the painting could be related to Ancher's own religious upbringing. Her portrayal of the female nude is unique for the time, given that this woman is not overtly sexualized and created solely as an object for the male gaze, as was typical among contemporary paintings of female nudes. Scholar Alice R. Price asserts that this painting is a reflection of Ancher's position as a woman of faith living in the traditional bohemian lifestyle of artists, that Price interprets as indicative of an ongoing inner conflict for the artist.{{Cite journal|last=Price|first=Alice Rudy|date=2016-06-22|title=Loss, the Female Nude, and Anna Ancher's Sorg: A Woman's Own Modernism|url=https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-467681151/loss-the-female-nude-and-anna-ancher-s-sorg-a-woman-s|journal=Scandinavian Studies|volume=88|issue=2|pages=97–128|issn=0036-5637|jstor=10.5406/scanstud.88.2.0097 }}

She exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.{{cite web |last1=Nichols |first1=K. L. |title=Women's Art at the World's Columbian Fair & Exposition, Chicago 1893| url=http://arcadiasystems.org/academia/cassatt10b.html#ancher|access-date=24 July 2018}} She was awarded the Ingenio et Arti medal in 1913,{{Cite web

|title=For videnskab og kunst medaljen Ingenio et arti

|trans-title=For science and art: the Ingenio et Arti medal

|work=Litterære priser, medaljer, legater mv [Literary prizes, medals, scholarships, etc]

|url=http://www.litteraturpriser.dk/ietarti.htm |access-date=2010-09-05

|type= List of recipients. Self-published, but with references

|language=da}} and the Tagea Brandt Rejselegat in 1924.[http://www.kvinfo.dk/side/680/article/92/ Kvinfo.dk] Article on Kvinfo (a Danish encyclopedia about Danish women) about Anne Ancher

Ancher was included in the 2018 exhibit, Women in Paris 1850-1900.{{cite book |last1=Madeline |first1=Laurence |title=Women artists in Paris, 1850-1900 |date=2017 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0300223934}}

Image:Michael & Anna Anchers Hus i Skagen, 2007 ubt.jpeg

The Skagen residence of Anna and Michael Ancher was purchased in 1884. In 1913, a large studio annex was added to the property. This also formed part of what is on display publicly today as a museum dedicated to both Anna and Michael Ancher. Upon her death in 1964, their daughter, Helga Ancher, left the house and all of its contents to a foundation. The former residence was restored and opened as a museum and visitor attraction.

In 1967, Michael and Anna Ancher's house (Anchers Hus) in Skagen was converted into a museum by the Helga Ancher Foundation before Anchers Hus opened to the public for tours. The original furniture and paintings created by the Anchers and other Skagen artists are shown in the restored home and studio. Art exhibitions are arranged in the Saxild House (Saxilds Gaard), another building on the property. It is filled with displays of paintings by Michael and Anna Ancher, as well as by many other Skagen painters who made up their circle of friends.[http://www.boboho.com/interior-articles.php?id=4 "Anne and Michael Ancher’s house"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708075518/http://www.boboho.com/interior-articles.php?id=4 |date=2011-07-08 }}, Boboho Interior design Magazine. Retrieved 16 October 2011.

A collection of almost 4,000 letters between Anna and Michael Ancher and their friends, with comments by the art historian Elisabeth Fabritius, was published as Anna og Mchael Ancher. Breve og fotografier 1866-1935 I-VI was published by Forlaget Historika. in 2020.{{cite web|url=https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/kultur/nyt-lys-over-skagensmalernes-liv|title=Skagensmaleres 4000 personlige breve er blevet offentliggjort: "Det er overvældende interessant"|language=Danish|website=Kristeligt Dagblad|access-date=4 March 2024}}

Anna and Michael Ancher were featured on the front side of the DKK1000 banknote, which came into circulation on 25 November 2004 and subsequently, was replaced. The front of the banknote had a double portrait of Anna and Michael Ancher, derived from two 1884 paintings by Peder Severin Krøyer,{{Cite book|url=http://www.nationalbanken.dk/C1256BE900406EF3/sysOakFil/Danmarks_penge_2005_ENG/$File/Coins_Banknotes.pdf|title=The coins and banknotes of Denmark|publisher=Danmarks Nationalbank|year=2005|isbn=87-87251-55-8|pages=22–23|access-date=6 September 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110523100635/http://www.nationalbanken.dk/C1256BE900406EF3/sysOakFil/Danmarks_penge_2005_ENG/%24File/Coins_Banknotes.pdf|archive-date=23 May 2011|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web

|url=http://www.nationalbanken.dk/DNUK/NotesAndCoins.nsf/side/1000-krone!OpenDocument

|title=1,000-krone banknote, 1997 series

|publisher=Danmarks Nationalbank

|access-date=7 September 2010

|url-status=dead

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100304205844/http://www.nationalbanken.dk/DNUK/NotesAndCoins.nsf/side/1000-krone%21OpenDocument

|archive-date=4 March 2010

}}

which originally hung on the walls in the dining room at Brøndums Hotel.{{cite book|editor=Lisette Vind Ebbesen and Dorthe Rosenfeldt Sieben|title=Malerikatalog. Skagens Museum. |year=2012 |publisher=Skagen Fondene |location=Skagen |isbn=978-87-91048-28-9 |pages=152, 157}}

Image: Syende fiskerpige.jpeg|Syende fiskerpige (Sewing Fisherman's Wife, 1890)

File:Anna Ancher - Harvesters - Google Art Project.jpg |Harvesters, 1905

Image: Anna Ancher3.jpg| Fru Ane Brøndum i den blå stue (Portrait of the Artist's Mother, 1913)

File:Anna Ancher - Sunlight in the blue room - Google Art Project.jpg|Solskin i den blå stue (Sunlight in the Blue Room, 1891)

File:Anna Ancher Pigen i koekkenet 1883-86.jpg|Pigen i køkkenet (Girl in the Kitchen {{Circa|1886}})

File:PluckingTheGeese AnnaAncher.jpg|Plucking the Christmas Goose, 1904

Image:Anna Ancher - Interieur mit Mohnblumen und lesender Frau (Lizzy Hohlenberg) 1905.jpeg|Interiør med røde valmuer (Interior with poppies and reading woman, 1905)

File:Young Girl Before a Lit Lamp (Anna Ancher).jpg|Young Girl Before a Lit Lamp, 1887

File:Anna Ancher - A Funeral - Google Art Project.jpg|A Funeral, 1891

File:Living room with lilac curtins and blue Clematis.jpg|Stue med lyseblå gardiner og blå Clematis (Room with light blue curtains and Blue Clematis , 1913)

File:Anna Ancher-Interior With The Painter's Daughter Helga Sewing.jpg |Interior With The Painter's Daughter Helga Sewing, 1890

File:Evening Prayer (Anna Ancher).jpg|Evening Prayer, 1888

• Anna Ancher – Skagens indre og ytre rom, Lillehammer Kunstmuseum, Norway, 2021{{Cite web|last=|first=|title=Anna Ancher – Skagens indre og ytre rom|url=https://lillehammerkunstmuseum.no/utstillinger/tidligere-ustillinger/anna-ancher-skagens-indre-og-ytre-rom|access-date=2021-08-29|website=lillehammerkunstmuseum.no|language=no-NO}}
• I Am Anna. A Homage to Anna Ancher, Skagens Museum, Denmark, 2009{{Cite book|url=https://menilcollectionlib.on.worldcat.org/oclc/845583555|title=I am Anna - a homage to Anna Ancher [on the occasion of the Exhibition "I Am Anna" - a homage to Anna Ancher, 2 May - 31 August 2009, Skagens Museum]|last1=Skagens Museum|first1=Anna|last2=Ancher|date=2009|publisher=Skagens Museum|isbn=9788791048180|location=Skagen}}
• Anna Ancher, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, 2011{{Cite book|url=https://menilcollectionlib.on.worldcat.org/oclc/730910958|title=Anna Ancher : Arken Museum of Modern Art, 29 January - 5 June 2011|last1=Arken museum for moderne kunst (Ishøj, Denmark)|first1=Anna|last2=Ancher|date=2011|publisher=Arken Museum of Modern Art|isbn=9788778750792|location=Ishøj }}
• Anna Ancher & Co.—The Painting Women, Ribe Kunstmuseum, Denmark, 2007{{Cite web|url=https://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/anna-ancher|title=Anna Ancher {{!}} National Museum of Women in the Arts|website=nmwa.org|access-date=2019-03-22}}
• Anna Ancher—det besjælede rum, Ribe Kunstmuseum, Denmark, 1999{{Cite book|url=https://menilcollectionlib.on.worldcat.org/oclc/78972231|title=Anna Ancher, det besjælede rum|last1=Ribe kunstmuseum (Denmark)|first1=Anna|last2=Ancher|date=1999|publisher=Kunstmuseum|location=Ribe }}
• Anna Ancher, 1859–1935, Malerin in Skagen, Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, Hannover, 1994–1995{{Cite book|url=https://menilcollectionlib.on.worldcat.org/oclc/32631689|title=Anna Ancher : 1859-1935 : malerin in Skagen|last1=Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover.|first1=Heide.|last2=Grape-Albers|date=1994|publisher=Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum|isbn=9783929444049|location=Hannover }}

• Skagen Painters

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book|last=Fabritius|first=Elisabeth|title=Anna Ancher: The Pastels|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f2uAPgAACAAJ|year=2008|publisher=Forlaget Vandkunsten|isbn=978-87-7695-077-4}}
• {{cite book|last=Jensen|first=Mette Bøgh|title=I Am Anna: A Homage to Anna Ancher|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tRpxQwAACAAJ|year=2009|publisher=Skagens Museum|isbn=978-87-91048-18-0}}
• {{cite book|last=Wivel|first=Ole|title=Anna Ancher 1859-1935|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hj_0tgAACAAJ|year=1987|publisher=Stokholms Forlag}}

{{Commons}}

• [http://www.broendums-hotel.dk/ Brøndums Hotel] Danish
• [https://www.konstbilder.se/konsttryck/konstnaerer-anna-ancher.html Anna ancher Life and Work - Image & Data Resources SE]
• [http://www.zeno.org/Kunstwerke/A/Ancher,+Anna Paintings and drawings by Anna Ancher]

{{Skagen Painters}}

{{New Woman (late 19th century)}}

{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ancher, Anna}}

Category:1859 births

Category:1935 deaths

Category:Skagen Painters

Category:19th-century Danish painters

Category:20th-century Danish painters

Category:19th-century Danish letter writers

Category:20th-century Danish letter writers

Category:Recipients of Ingenio et Arti

Category:People from Skagen

Category:20th-century Danish artists

Category:20th-century Danish women painters

Category:19th-century Danish women painters