Portrait of Vilhelmine Erichsen

Kristian Zahrtmann (1843–1917) was the first in a line of great native painters from Bornholm. Although Zahrtmann settled in Copenhagen and spent most of his summers in Italy’s mountain village of Civita d’Antino, he maintained strong ties with the island. Few other artists in Denmark have received such variable critique as Kristian Zahrtmann. In his own age he was renowned and idolised as both painter and teacher, only to see his artistic stature fade until he was largely regarded as a curiosity. New times and new approaches to painting, both in Denmark and abroad, have restored an appreciation of Zahrtmann’s art, notably because he, like no one else, managed to rejuvenate Danish painting in the early 20th century, and it is perhaps this spirit of fin de siècle that prompts Zahrtmann’s work to be the object of renewed interest – at the dawn of another new century.