THE FUNEN PAINTERS. ART ABOVE ALL!

"Art above all!" exclaims the young artist Alhed Larsen in a letter from 1893. Still in the hopeful, dream-filled years of her youth, she would soon face the same challenge as several of the other Funen painters: how to balance family life with a career as an artist.

This is a story about finding beauty in everyday life together: in the family, in one another and in the gardens and landscapes that surrounded them. But it is also a story of the struggle for equality and of women’s fight for the right to pursue their own work.

For the Funen painters Anna Syberg (1870–1914), Alhed Larsen (1872–1927) and Christine Swane (1876–1960), domestic duties and daily interruptions were a constant presence. Yet despite these demands, they found the time and energy to devote themselves to their art. Together with their husbands, the artists Fritz Syberg, Johannes Larsen and Sigurd Swane, they created some of the most intimate depictions of family life and the private home in art history.

The Funen Painters: Art Above All! is based on an extensive research project centred on the correspondence between the three couples. The exhibition is a revised and updated version of an earlier presentation at Kunstmuseum Brandts in 2023.

Bringing together some of the artists’ most significant works, the exhibition foregrounds their own voices through letters and archival material. It offers an intimate insight into one of the most compelling artistic communities in Danish art history, whose members lived and dreamed at a time of profound change.

At the heart of the exhibition are three artist couples: Anna and Fritz Syberg, Alhed and Johannes Larsen, and Christine and Sigurd Swane. As close friends, relatives and fellow artists, their lives became deeply intertwined.

While the world around them was shaken by war and economic crisis, and urbanisation and industrialisation transformed everyday life in Denmark, the artists turned towards nature and rural life, away from the pace and gloom of the city. On Funen, they created an alternative world, nurtured by a strong sense of community and the vitalist ideals of the new century. Here, they found one another, both in life and in art.

The exhibition looks beyond the beautiful flower paintings and much-loved scenes of family life to reveal the realities behind the art. It traces the artists’ lives from the romances of their youth to Christine and Sigurd Swane’s divorce, and the untimely deaths of Anna Syberg and Alhed Larsen.

Over the years, the lives and artistic practices of the Sybergs, Larsens and Swanes took very different paths. Their shared ideals began to fracture, but they never stopped dreaming. Art became the space in which they could realise their vision of a good life, balancing family, leisure and work.

Curator Søren Thorlak Madsen, PhD, in collaboration with The Hirschsprung Collection, building on the original version of the exhibition presented at Kunstmuseum Brandts.

The new exhibition design is by Luise Midtgaard, with lighting by Copenhagen Lighting Studio.

The Augustinus Foundation, the Aage and Johanne-Louis Hansen Foundation, the Kemp & Lauritzen Foundation, Etatsraad Georg Bestles og Hustrus Mindelegat, the Gangsted Foundation, the Arne V. Schlesch Foundation, and the Hoffmann and Husmans Foundation.