 | Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann (1819-1881)19. May 2011
Exhibition with works by Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann (1819-1881).
She was born in Poland, educated in Germany, married to a Dane and
she became an integrated part of Danish cultural life while being
an active portrait artist and painter of lives in Europe and in the
near East.
Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann's family fled Poland because of war. In
her younger years, she lived in Germany and trained in Munich.
Subsequently, she travelled to Rome where many artists from all
over Europe came to get to know each other. She met her husband,
sculptor Jens Adolf Jerichau there. They married and moved to
Denmark in 1847, and over the following 15 years she gave
birth to nine children. She kept her strongly international focus
and for long periods of her life she lived in Rome and travelled
much.
The exhibition displays a wide range of her works; showing how a
woman with courage and visions, talent and effort could make a name
for herself as an artist on the international scene in the Danish
Golden Age.
In many ways, she was a role model able to break barriers and
create connections between the otherwise irreconcilable challenges
of women in contemporary society. In addition to her artistic
talent, she was good at promoting herself and a running a business.
Her life was as varied and all-encompassing as her choice of
motives - and vice versa.
She was a close friend of the poet H.C. Andersen. The mermaid as a
motive was common to the two artists - she painted it several
times. H.C. Andersen wrote the fairytale and read it to Mrs.
Baumann and her children before making it public.
Travelling was another common passion - in a century where travels
through Europe happened by horse or coach.
Through Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann's paintings, we can recall
memories of life in former generations with rich and poor,
nationalists and internationally oriented people. We can be happy
that a woman of her standing settled in Denmark even though she
never became rooted.
Denmark has many important works from her hand in museums and in
private collections. Many fine examples of her work can also be
found in other countries, where she herself once moved easily
across borders.
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