After an incredibly successful run at the National Gallery the first exhibition of paintings by Christen Købke (1810–1848) ever to be shown outside Denmark has now moved to the National Gallery of Scotland. This exhibition has come about in part thanks to research funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
The exhibition, entitled ‘Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light‘, opened at the National Gallery of Scotland on July 4th. It represents the culmination of a two year research project into Købke’s work by Professor David Jackson of the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds, funded by a grant from the AHRC.
Underappreciated in his lifetime, Købke is now revered as one of the most talented and influential artists of his generation, and the leading figure of Denmark’s celebrated ‘Golden Age‘ in the early 19th century.
“Købke captures this period really precisely and beautifully”, says Professor Jackson.
Thanks to the research grant from the AHRC, and aided by his Danish research assistant Sine Krogh, Professor Jackson has been able to make frequent trips to Denmark to examine Købke’s original letters and other papers in the archives of the Royal Danish Academy Library and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Copenhagen. He has also secured loans of Købke’s works from such prestigious institutions as the Statens Museum for Kunst, the Hirschsprung Collection and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, along with the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and even the Musée de Louvre in Paris.
Professor Jackson has played a key role in organising, and is acting as guest curator of, the two exhibitions. He hopes that these exhibitions will help expose a wider audience to the celebrated artist. “Købke is someone whose work really encapsulates and sums up a period”, he says, “someone who has been of huge importance in the development of Danish painting. We hope to introduce him to an audience that won’t know him.”
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Media Contact:
AHRC Communications Manager, Jake Gilmore 01793 41 6021 / j.gilmore@ahrc.ac.uk
Notes to Editors
‘Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light’ is organised by the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh with the National Gallery.
CHRISTEN KØBKE: DANISH MASTER OF LIGHT
4 July - 3 October 2010
NATIONAL GALLERY COMPLEX, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Telephone 0131 624 6200, www.nationalgalleries.org
Admission £7 (£5 concessions)
The exhibition is curated by David Jackson and Christopher Riopelle. David Jackson is Professor of Russian and Scandinavian Art Histories at the University of Leeds. Christopher Riopelle is Curator of Post-1800 Paintings at the National Gallery, London.
This important exhibition brings together the most exhaustive selection of paintings by Christen Købke (1810-1848) ever to be shown outside Denmark.
Købke was a pre-eminent painter in his country and one of the foremost talents of Denmark's Golden Age. The exhibition features around 40 of Købke's most celebrated works, spanning a variety of genres. Giving an overview of Købke's achievement within its cultural context, the exhibition emphasises his exquisite originality and experimental outlook while focusing on the most innovative aspects of his work.
Købke's paintings demonstrate his ability to endow ordinary people and places and simple motifs with a universal significance, creating a world in microcosm for the viewer.
Denmark’s ‘Golden Age’ – the term used to describe the amazing diversity of intellectual, scientific and cultural achievements of the first half of the 19th century – was nevertheless a time of social inequality and economic collapse as the nation was declared bankrupt in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. Yet Denmark recovered with remarkable swiftness and creative endeavour to produce in its art defining images of a peaceful, innocent, ordered society.
Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC): Each year the AHRC provides approximately £112 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,300 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.