Harald Slott-Møller, “Summer Day,” oil on canvas, 1888 (collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr.)
COPENHAGEN AND VANGUARD EUROPE
Scandinavia House
58 Park Ave. at 38th St.
Monday, January 13, free, 6:30
Exhibit continues Tuesday-Saturday through January 25, free, 12 noon – 6:00
212-847-9740
www.scandinaviahouse.org
More than three dozen works by two dozen artists who were part of the tremendous surge in painting in Denmark from the early eighteenth to early twentieth centuries are on view in the Scandinavia House exhibit “Danish Paintings from the Golden Age to the Modern Breakthrough: Selections from the Collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr.” On January 13 at 6:30, Dr. Patricia G. Berman, who cocurated the exhibition with Dr. Thor J. Mednick and is the author of In Another Light: Danish Painting in the Nineteenth Century, will deliver the free illustrated lecture “Copenhagen and Vanguard Europe,” focusing on Denmark’s capital city as a center for avant-garde artists in the 1890s, particularly while the nation tried to redefine its identity during the social, financial, and political upheaval that followed the Napoleonic wars. Professor Berman has lectured often at Scandinavia House; her clarity and charm make the enormous amount of fascinating information she’s able to deliver all the more enlightening. The lovely show has been extended through January 25 and is highlighted by such beautiful canvases as Harald Slott-Møller’s “Summer Day,” in which two women delicately stand in shallow water on a beach; Bertha Wegmann’s “Interior with a Bunch of Wild Flowers, Tyrol,” a still-life with several surprising items; P. S. Krøyer’s “Self-Portrait, Sitting by His Easel at Skagen Beach,” with its earth-toned foreground colors set off against the blue of the sky and sea; and Vilhelm Hammershøi’s “Interior with a Woman Standing,” a stunning composition featuring open and closed doors, a shadowy woman, and a mysterious silence, as if the viewer is being invited in to something they will never learn anything more about. The show also includes works by Ludvig Find, Christen Købke, Otto Bache, Jens Juel, and husband and wife Anna Ancher and Michael Ancher, among others. The paintings are all from the collection of New York City native John Langeloth Loeb Jr., who served as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark from 1981 to 1983 and then as a delegate to the United Nations.