Alhed Maria Larsen née Warberg (7 April 1872, Heden near Faaborg – 31 August 1927, Odense), the wife of Johannes Larsen, was one of the Fynboerne or "Funen Artists" who lived and worked on the Danish island of Funen. She appears to have been a central figure for the Funen Painters, frequently acting as hostess. [1] [2]
Alhed Larsen was the daughter of Albrecht Christoffer Warberg, who managed the Erikshåb estate in the south of Funen. The estate became an early meeting place for the artists who later became known as the Fynboerne. As early as 1885, Larsen began to have painting lessons with Fritz Syberg and she became a friend of Johannes Larsen, whom she married in 1898, and of Peter Hansen. Anna Syberg, Hansen's sister, Marie Schou and Christine Swane, Johannes Larsen's sister, became lifelong companions.
Alhed Larsen had also had drawing lessons from her uncle Ludvig Brandstrup with whom she stayed in Copenhagen where she worked as a porcelain decorator at the Royal Copenhagen factory from 1890 to 1893. [3] When she finally married Johannes Larsen in 1898, the couple moved to Kerteminde in north-east Funen where they soon built their new home, Møllebakken, on the outskirts of the town. The house was extended on several occasions, becoming one of the most beautiful artists' homes in the country. With its 16 bedrooms, it served as a central meeting place for the Funen Painters and their friends, in the caring hands of Alhed Larsen.
Side-by-side with her role as a mother and hostess, Larsen still found time to paint. From 1900 to 1906, she exhibited five times at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition held at the Charlottenborg Palace. With her husband, she went on study tours to Paris (1904) and the United States where she spent six months with her family in 1904. When the Faaborg Museum was opened for the Funen Painters in 1910, Larsen and the other women received little attention being treated as amateur "flower painters" by members of the acquisitions committee. In 1912, the women put on their own exhibition at Den Frie Udstilling. [1]
Larsen's subjects were principally flowers, interiors and window views. The colours are rather dark in her early work but she later depicted sunlight shining on her flower arrangements and window scenes. In 1917, she and her husband each had their own studios at Møllebakken next to the winter garden where she was able to develop her painting with more intense colour, sometimes in pastel. In the 1920s, her health deteriorated but she continued to paint, ever more impressionistically, until her death in 1927. After her death, her husband ensured that her work was properly represented in the newly founded Kerteminde Museum. [1]
Faaborg or Fåborg is an old port town located on Faaborg Fjord in Faaborg-Midtfyn municipality on the island of Funen in Denmark. By road, Faaborg is located 42 kilometres (26 mi) southwest of Odense, 27 kilometres (17 mi) north-northwest of Svendborg, and roughly 70 kilometres (43 mi) southeast of Middelfart, depending upon the route. It has a population of 6,988. With its busy port, narrow streets and attractive old houses, the town is popular with tourists, particularly in the summer months. Faaborg was formerly the seat of Faaborg municipality. The seat of the new municipality is Ringe. Both municipalities use(d) Faaborg's medieval coat of arms.
Kerteminde, is a town in central Denmark, located in Kerteminde Municipality on the island of Funen. The town has a population of 5,987. It is a small harbor town surrounded by farms. Kerteminde contains a fish restaurant, Rudolf Mathis, the Viking museum Ladby, and the research and exhibition institution for fish and porpoises Fjord & Bælt.
Exposition Universelle
Johannes Larsen was a Danish nature painter.
Danish art is the visual arts produced in Denmark or by Danish artists. It goes back thousands of years with significant artifacts from the 2nd millennium BC, such as the Trundholm sun chariot. For many early periods, it is usually considered as part of the wider Nordic art of Scandinavia. Art from what is today Denmark forms part of the art of the Nordic Bronze Age, and then Norse and Viking art. Danish medieval painting is almost entirely known from church frescos such as those from the 16th-century artist known as the Elmelunde Master.
Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler was an art school established in Copenhagen in 1882 as a protest against the policies of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and to provide an alternative to its educational program. It existed until 1912 and was a central institution of the Modern Breakthrough in Danish art.
Peter Marius Hansen was a Danish painter who became one of the Fynboerne or "Funen Painters" group living and working on the island of Funen.
Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Syberg, generally known as Fritz Syberg, was a Danish painter and illustrator, one of the or Funen Painters (Fynboerne) living and working on the island of Funen.
Anna Louise Birgitte Syberg was a Danish painter. Together with her husband Fritz Syberg, she was one of the Funen Painters (Fynboerne) who lived and worked on the island of Funen. She is remembered for her lively watercolours of flower arrangements.
The Funen Painters or Fynboerne were a loose group of Danish artists who formed an art colony on the island of Funen at the very beginning of the 20th century. They were strongly influenced by Kristian Zahrtmann who taught at the Artists Studio School in Copenhagen from 1885 to 1908. Like Zahrtmann, they abandoned the traditions of the Danish Academy and ventured into Naturalism and Realism.
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Christine Swane née Christine Larsen was a Danish painter who first associated with the Funen Painters before developing her own increasingly Cubist style.
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Ingeborg Plockross Irminger (1872–1962) was a Danish artist who is remembered both for her sculptures and for the miniature porcelain statues of animals and human figures she designed while working for Bing & Grøndahl. A bronze cast of her 1903 bust of the writer Herman Bang was installed on Sankt Annæ Plads in Copenhagen in 2012.
Syberg Keramik was a Danish ceramics manufacturer based in the Valby district of Copenhagen, Denmark. It was created by Hans Syberg and later taken over by his brother Lars Syberg,. It existed from 1928 until the 1980s and was based in Valby
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Media related to Alhed Larsen at Wikimedia Commons