PRESS RELEASE WOMEN OF SURREALISM Rita Kernn-Larsen: Festen,1935, the Art Museum in Tønder A NEW EXHIBITION SHINES A SPOTLIGHT ON THREE FEMALE DANISH ARTISTS, WHO IN THEIR HEYDAY MADE A NAME FOR THEMSELVES AMONG THE FRONTRUNNERS OF DANISH SURREALISM, BUT WHO WERE LATER MORE OR LESS FORGOTTEN. THE EXHIBITION PRESENTS THE THREE ARTISTS MAJOR SURREALIST WORKS.
Franciska Clausen, Rita Kernn-Larsen and Elsa Thoresen all drew inspiration from Surrealism and the great European art scenes of the time. Each in their way they were frontrunners within Danish Surrealism in the 1920s and 1930s, but while their male colleagues have taken up permanent positions in art history, today only few people are familiar with the three women and their work. Kunstforeningen GL STRAND will change that with the ambitious exhibition: Women of Surrealism. Franciska Clausen, Rita Kernn-Larsen and Elsa Thoresen. The exhibition makes Danish art history by exhibiting the three female artists side by side for the first time ever. Based in an evocative and colourful set design the exhibition presents a broad selection of their works of which several have never been shown to the public before. This unique setting, presentation and selection of works unite the three women artistically, while at the same time exploring their diverse approaches to the principles of Surrealism. Remarkable Women Franciska Clausen, Rita Kernn-Larsen and Elsa Thoresen were all significant female painters, whose paths crossed time and again in a time of artistic revolution. Early in life they all travel to the main European art centres to receive instruction from leading contemporary artists. They draw inspiration from the many new styles and Avant-garde trends of the 1920s, not least Surrealism. When Surrealism makes its entry in Denmark in the 1930s, they establish contact with the art scene and each other in Copenhagen. They each develop unique ways of expressing themselves through the principles of Surrealism and create dreamy, poetic and sensual works of a high quality. While many are familiar with the male Danish exponents for Surrealism Vilhelm Freddie, Richard Mortensen and Vilhelm Bjerke Petersen, among others today few are familiar with the impact of Franciska Clausen, Rita Kernn-Larsen and Elsa Thoresen within Surrealist art. For various reasons, the work of the three women falls into oblivion after their heyday. However, the work of both Clausen and Kernn-Larsen has been shown in retrospective solo exhibitions in modern times, but this is the first time the less well-known work of Elsa Thoresen is shown. The exhibition is organised by Museum Sønderjylland the Art Museum in Tønder, Kunstforeningen GL STRAND and Art Historian, MA Johan Zimsen Kristiansen in cooperation. The latter is the curator of the present presentation of Elsa Thoresen. The exhibition is in line with Kunstforeningen GL STRAND s returning interest in female artists who, despite great talent, have more or less passed into oblivion in art history. Each in their own way the three artists are remarkable painters and women. They defy conventional contemporary views of women and thus risk their own social status to go exploring and allow themselves to be inspired by the great artists of the time. Today their work, inspired by the principles of Surrealism, holds a unique strength, poeticism and sense of wonder. We look forward to giving the general public a chance to experience them, says Helle Behrndt, Director of Kunstforeningen GL STRAND. CATALOGUE: Women of Surrealism. Franciska Clausen, Rita Kernn-Larsen and Elsa Thoresen is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue containing several articles that offer new research perspectives on the impact of the three artists on Danish Surrealism and the impact of Surrealism on their art. The Danish-language catalogue will contain reproductions of all exhibited works and is addressed to
the general public as well as to art professionals. Co-authors: Art Historian, MA Johan Zimsen Kristiansen, Museum Curator at Museum Sønderjylland the Art Museum in Tønder Søs Bech Ladefoged, Art Historian and Curator Nathalie Ernoult at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museum Curator at Museum Sønderjylland the Art Museum Brundlund Castle Morten la Cour and Art Historian and Exhibition Curator Gražina Subelyte. The exhibition Women of Surrealism. Franciska Clausen, Rita Kernn-Larsen and Elsa Thoresen is shown at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND from 15 September 2018 to 20 January 2019. Subsequently, the exhibition travels to Museum Sønderjylland the Art Museum in Tønder, where it is shown from 2 February to 2 June 2019. The opening of the exhibition at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND will be held on 14 September at 17:00-19:00. You are invited to a PRESS SHOWING on 14 September 2018 at 11:00 attended by Director of Kunstforeningen GL STRAND Helle Behrndt, Curator at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND Pernille Fonnesbech, Head of Section for Art at Museum Sønderjylland the Art Museum in Tønder Anne Blond, Museum Curator at Museum Sønderjylland the Art Museum in Tønder Søs Bech Ladefoged, Museum Curator at Museum Sønderjylland the Art Museum Brundlund Castle Morten la Cour and Art Historian, MA Johan Zimsen Kristiansen. The press conference will be followed by a light lunch. If you are able to attend the event, please inform Communications Manager Charlotte Frost at cf@glstrand.dk. For more INFORMATION, please contact Communications Manager Charlotte Frost at +45 33 36 02 61/cf@glstrand.dk or Communications Assistant Camilla Agerskov at pr@glstrand.dk. PRESS PHOTOS and PRESS RELEASES are available in our newsroom at: http://www.glstrand.dk/presse/2018.aspx Login: presse Password: glstrand1 Follow us on Facebook (Kunstforeningen GL STRAND) or Instagram (@kunstglstrand) for news about exhibitions and events at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND.
Franciska Clausen (1899-1986) Franciska Clausen s interest in Surrealism is evident from her works from the second half of the 1920s. During this period, she lives in Paris and is part of the art scene centred around the Modernist painter Fernand Léger. Franciska Clausen: Fisken,1926, the Art Museum Brundlund Castle From 1924-1925 she works in Paris at Fernand Legér s Académie Moderne, and his art has a dominant influence on her work, which however is less figurative than that of her mentor. In 1924 works by Franciska Clausen as well as by Otto Carlssund and Erik Olson are shown in Paris in an exhibition of Léger and his Scandinavian students. In the late 1920s she is drawn towards the abstract style of Neoplasticism, and in 1930 she exhibits with the group Cercle et Carré, which includes Piet Mondrian, among others. Franciska Clausen also explores other Modernist trends and performs Surrealist experiments, mainly in the form of collages. When her father dies she returns to Aabenraa where she continues to work for many years, isolated from the Danish art scene, doing portraits on request. In 1964 her paintings and gouaches are shown in a retrospective exhibition at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND. Rita Kernn-Larsen (1904-1998) Rita Kernn-Larsen comes to occupy a central position among Danish Surrealists after having lived abroad for a period of years and drawn inspiration from the new Avant-garde principles and tendencies of the time. Her art training begins in 1924 at Statens Tegneskole in Oslo. Later she returns to Copenhagen to continue her training at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in the years 1927-1929. Rita Kernn-Larsen: Blåt Dilemma, 1935, the Art Museum in Tønder Kernn-Larsen focusses on the new Modernist painting and considers the training offered in Copenhagen too conventional. She moves to Paris in 1929 and, like Clausen, becomes a student of Fernand Léger at the Académie Moderne in 1930-1931. Under his instruction she gains a detailed sense of shape, volume and principles of composition, and initially she experiments with various new styles, including Cubism and Léger s machine aesthetics. She is promoted by Léger, who engages her to transfer his drawings onto the big canvas, but she also has an eye for pictures that tell a story and successfully manages to sell illustrations to Danish daily newspapers and magazines during these years. After her death the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice recreates her 1938 exhibition at the Guggenheim Jeune gallery in 2017.
Elsa Thoresen (1906-1994) Elsa Thoresen is officially introduced to the philosophy of Surrealism through her first husband, the Danish artist and Surrealist frontrunner in Copenhagen Vilhelm Bjerke Petersen (1909-1957). They meet at the academy in Oslo, to which Elsa Thoresen has moved after having spent her entire childhood in the USA with her Norwegian parents. She is a student at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry from 1924-1927 and the National Academy of Art in Oslo, where she is enrolled up until 1929. In the years 1927-1929 she also studies at the Académie Royal des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Belgium. Here Surrealism also has a good grip on the art scene with the Belgian painter René Magritte as a significant front figure. In 1944 Thoresen and Bjerke Petersen are forced to flee to Sweden. Here they join the Halmstad Group, which has managed to establish an active Surrealist art milieu. After the war Thoresen and Bjerke Petersen move to the USA, when Bjerke Petersen receives a Guggenheim scholarship. In 1947 they return to Sweden, but divorce in 1953, after which Thoresen returns to the USA, where she remains for the rest of her life. Elsa Thoresen: Objects of Elements, 1945, the Art Museum in Tønder In 1939 Elsa Thoresen and Vilhelm Bjerke Petersen create 13 Surrealist paintings in the various stairways of the apartment building Ved Volden in Christianshavn in Copenhagen.