![\"Anchers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\/58998542-419f-49a7-9174-e02ddbc0f7ff.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSkagen, a remote fishing port at the northernmost tip of Denmark, where the clashing waters of the Skagerrak and Kattegat seas meet, is immediately appealing. When I visit in mid-October, the sun is shining and the autumn leaves are crinkled and crisp, yellow and red like the distinctive coloured houses. Today almost half of them belong to wealthy folk from Copenhagen who enjoy spending the summer by the coast, but in the late 19th century the demographic looked rather different. There were fishermen, yes, plenty of fishermen \u2014 and a thriving community of international artists who left bustling cities behind in search of a simple way of life.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m here for one artist in particular, Anna Ancher (n\u00e9e Brondum), who was 12 years old when the first painters of what would become the Skagen art colony pitched up in 1872. If the name doesn\u2019t ring a bell, don\u2019t worry, you\u2019re not alone. One of Denmark\u2019s greatest artists remains relatively unknown to British audiences, although a big exhibition opening next month at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London is sure to remedy that. <\/p>\n
In Skagen, her art is everywhere: in Brondums Hotel where I\u2019m staying (and where she was born in 1859); in the Skagens Museum across the street (a street called Anchersvej, or Ancher\u2019s Road); and in the house round the corner where she and her husband lived and worked until her death in 1935 (at which point their only daughter bequeathed it to a foundation to preserve; Anchers Hus opened as a museum in 1967).<\/p>\n
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Ancher\u2019s house in the Danish town of Skagen<\/p>\n
ALAMY<\/p>\n
Her art is everywhere in Skagen, and Skagen is everywhere in her art. Throughout her life, Ancher repeatedly painted the family hotel, her married home, and the local environment with its rugged scenery, working people, traditions and religion. With expressive, sketchy brushstrokes, she created radiant interior scenes and intimate portraits \u2014 a girl sewing, her mother huddled beneath a bulky blanket, a fisherman whittling sticks \u2014 that paid as much attention to light, and the atmosphere it conjured up, as the models. The way evening light tiptoes over the surface of a wall. The effect morning rays have on a weatherbeaten face or hardworking hands. In her landscapes, light glints across gardens, fields, the beach and the moors.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The best exhibitions in London and the UK to book now<\/a><\/p>\n It was partly the light that brought progressive artists to this traditional fishing village; sandwiched between two seas, with lashings of salt spray, the area was thought to be uniquely bright. The dramatic landscape was perfect for plein air painting \u2014 on the rise since the introduction of portable tin paint tubes in 1841 \u2014 and the secluded, rural setting was pleasingly wild. Before they found permanent lodgings, the only place they could stay was Brondums Hotel, which was owned by Ancher\u2019s parents. Eager to learn how to draw and paint, young Anna had unofficial teachers on tap. A decade later, the hotel\u2019s dining room was decorated with a frieze of portraits of the colony\u2019s members, now in the museum, a who\u2019s who of the Skagen set, modern and bohemian.<\/p>\n Brondums Hotel dining room, Skagen, 1891<\/p>\n COURTESY SKAGENS MUSEUM<\/p>\n Anna and Michael Ancher at home<\/p>\n At the centre are Anna and her husband, Michael Ancher, a Danish painter who travelled from Copenhagen to Skagen in search of inspiration in 1874. Like the others, he was tired of the romanticised attitude of the previous generation and seeking subjects that were rough and real. They met that year, and he encouraged her to pursue a career as an artist. \u201cNow be diligent about drawing and let it be your goal to become a painter, and everything will most likely go well,\u201d he wrote to her in January 1875. <\/p>\n He wasn\u2019t alone. Despite being deeply religious, her mother, Ane Brondum, wanted more for her children than marriage and in 1875 supported her 15-year-old daughter\u2019s decision to enrol in Vilhelm Kyhn\u2019s private school for gifted female painters in Copenhagen (the Royal Danish Art Academy didn\u2019t accept women until 1888).<\/p>\n Not everyone was so enthusiastic. After she and Michael married in 1880, and she had given birth to her daughter, Helga, three years later, Kyhn advised her to toss her pochade painting box into the sea. But with the support of her family she continued painting against the odds, and successfully exhibited year on year. In the house the young family shared from 1884, I linger in front of Anna Ancher standing in the Doorway. Study for \u2018Portrait of my Wife\u2019 (1883), a provocative portrait by Michael that shows Anna on the brink of motherhood, standing before an open door (and a sniffing dog). It\u2019s hard to know whether or not she worried that the birth of a child would derail her career, but this bold painting of the artist, visibly pregnant, about to step outside, shows a composed and confident woman who refuses to be kept at home.<\/p>\n Anna Ancher standing in the Doorway. Study for \u2018Portrait of my Wife\u2019 (1883) by Michael Peter Ancher<\/p>\n ALAMY<\/p>\n Together, the Anchers travelled through Europe, with stints in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Britain. Along the way, they immersed themselves in the old masters, and collected books and objects that to this day dot the tables and shelves of Anchers Hus, perfectly preserved along with artworks by friends and colleagues. In her quiet scenes of solitary women in domestic spaces are glimpses of the Dutch 17th-century art she admired in Vienna. In The Maid in the Kitchen (1883-6), a maid in a poppy-red skirt faces away from us and towards a window partially covered with a caf\u00e9 curtain that\u2019s creamy yellow with daylight. The wall is bare, the stone floor cold and hard. Fresh fish, soiled carrots and a couple of cabbages await preparation on a wooden bench in the foreground.<\/p>\n![\"Br\u00f8ndums](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\/a38d83d4-1cc5-44d3-8403-536ccd553db7.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Anna](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\/ecbc41ec-6da1-4196-ae2f-aa9952721082.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Oil](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\/a5c48e03-7c77-4ebe-b9d9-9f7146265d37.jpg\")
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![\"Illustration](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\/a7429f02-d563-4cc5-9bcf-b8ef81a29ad2.jpg\")
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