This wonderful gallery (undergoing major renovation and expansion from late 2014 into 2015) showcases the outstanding art that was produced in Skagen between 1870 and 1930.
Artists discovered Skagen’s luminous light and its wind-blasted heath-and-dune landscape in the mid-19th century, and fixed eagerly on the romantic imagery of the area’s fishing life that had earned the people of Skagen a hard living for centuries.
Painters such as PS Krøyer and Anna and Michael Ancher followed the contemporary fashion of painting en plein air (out of doors). Their work established a vivid figurative style of painting that became known internationally as the ‘Skagen School’.
PS Krøyer’s work is quite incredible, particularly his efforts to ‘paint the light’. He was particularly transfixed by the ‘blue hour’, the transition between day and night, when the sky and the sea seem to merge into each other in the same shade of blue.
Overall, the paintings here evoke a sense of place and demonstrate a real community of artists in Skagen who worked and played together. The gallery also houses the former dining room of the Brøndums Hotel, one-time hang-out of many of the Skagen artists. The portrait-filled room was moved in its entirety in 1946 from the hotel across the road.
