Women Artists in Denmark 1880-1910: In Search of the Modern [Paperback]

Women Artists in Denmark 1880-1910: In Search of the Modernfollows a number of female Danish artists who rebelled against the notion that art was a male-dominated discipline. They attended Georg Brandes’ lectures, discarded their corsets, and experimented with new artistic expressions. They were not merely spectators of the Modern Breakthrough in Scandinavia: they actively participated in it.

By examining the period’s literature, photographs, satire, and art, this book demonstrates how these artists interpreted modernity, portrayed one another, and explored the dynamics between the sexes. Featuring more than 100 artworks, the book provides new perspectives on modernity, rescuing from the obscurity of art history an entire generation of female artists who, until now, have been known primarily through the paintings of Anna Ancher, Marie Krøyer, Agnes Slott-Møller, and Bertha Wegmann.Shines a spotlight on a number of female artists’ contributions to the Danish art scene at the end of the nineteenth century.“An excellent introduction to an underknown history of modern art [and] a textbook example of how vigorous scholarship can illuminate new ways of seeing the history of art, and of understanding what we’re looking at. Specifically, the authors demonstrate how a pioneering generation of women was ‘integral to making art modern.’”—Bridget Quinn,Hyperallergic

AHyperallergicFavorite Art Book of 2025

Inge Lise Mogensen Bech holds a PhD in Art History and is a curator at the Randers Art Museum. Her doctoral thesis focused on some of the overlooked and marginalised others of art history: women, popular culture, and madness. 

Lene Bøgh Rønberg holds a PhD in Art History and is a curator and project researcher at the Hirschsprung Collection. Previously, she worked on the Danish Golden Age and on Rls