Gathering toward the light - selected work by Anna Ancher

 

Solskin i den blå stue (Sunlight in the blue room), 1891.

Skageninteriør med en solstribe på gulvet (Skagen interior with a ray of sunlight on the floor), ND.

En blind kone i sin stue (A blind woman in her living room), 1883.

Syende fiskerpige (Sewing fisher girl), 1890.

Interiør. Brøndums anneks (Interior. Brøndums annex - a view of rooms in her father's hotel), circa 1920.

Kunstnerindens mor, Ane Brøndum, læsende i den røde stue (The artist's mother, Ane Brøndum, reading in the red room), 1910.

Interiør med en ung pige, der fletter sit hår (Interior with a young girl braiding her hair), 1891.

Solskin i den blindes stue (Sunshine in the room of the blind), 1885.

Pigen i køkkenet (The girl in the kitchen), 1883-86.

Pigen i køkkenet studie - study for the above painting, circa 1883.

Fru Ane Brøndum i den blå stue (Mrs. Ane Brøndum in the blue room), 1913.

Skagenskone med den lille Helga Ancher på skødet i solskin foran et hvidkalket hus... 

... (Skagen lady with little Helga Ancher on her lap in the sunshine in front of a whitewashed house), 1889.

Den røde stue. Interiør med kunstnerens datter Helga (The red room. Interior with the artist's daughter Helga), 1904.

Kunstnerens mor Ane Hedvig Brøndum i den blå stue (The artist's mother Ane Hedvig Brøndum in the blue room), 1909.

To småpiger får undervisning i syning (Two little girls receive lessons in sewing), 1910.

Aftensol i kunstnerens atelier på Markvej (Evening sun in the artist's studio on Markvej - Markvej is a street in Skagen), circa after 1913.

Kunstnerindens mor Ane Hedvig Brøndum siddende ved sit skrivebord i den røde stue...

... (The artist's mother Ane Hedvig Brøndum sitting at her desk in the red room), 1910.

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Anna Ancher (18 August 1859, Skagen – 15 April 1935, Skagen), Danish artist associated with the Skagen Painters, the celebrated artist colony that gathered on the northern point of Jylland, Denmark. The daughter of a hotel owner, she was the only one of the colony painters who was actually born and grew up in Skagen. Her artistic abilities obvious from an early age, she later studied drawing for three years at the Vilhelm Kyhn College of Painting in Copenhagen. She also studied drawing in Paris at the atelier of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. In 1880 she married fellow painter Michael Ancher, with whom she had one child, Helga, who later became an artist herself. Despite pressure from contemporary society that married women should solely devote themselves to household concerns, she continued painting after her marriage. Considered one of Denmark's great pictorial artists, she was widely recognized as such even during her lifetime; her work was exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, and she was awarded the Ingenio et Arti medal in 1913, as well as the Tagea Brandt Rejselegat in 1924. She and her husband purchased a home in Skagen in 1884, and in 1913 added a large studio annex to the property. Upon their daughter's death in 1964, the house and all of its contents were left to a foundation, and the residence was restored and opened as a museum. The Anchers Hus still contains the family's original furniture, as well as paintings created by the Anchers and other Skagen artists.

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And finally, though it certainly doesn't fit with the theme of this post, I had to include this, Ancher's remarkable, truly profound portrayal of grief.

Sorg (Grief), 1902.