Bornholms Kunstmuseum

Bornholm Art Museum is situated about six kilometres north-west of Gudhjem in one of the most spectacular landscapes in Denmark. The museum’s floor space covering 4,000 m² is dispersed over three levels, following the natural slope of the terrain down to the rocky coast. In former times, people flocked to the area because of the supposed curative powers of the sacred spring (Helligdomskilden) found here. Today, the spring symbolises activities, experiences, recreation and spiritual development. The spring now bubbles out of a fountain and flows through a gutter the entire length of the building, before being released into the Baltic Sea through a small wishing well. This makes the building itself, regarded as a nonpareil of Scandinavian architecture, an artistic experience in its own right with its bright, lovely rooms. The permanent collection comprises visual arts and craft art relating to Bornholm. The collection’s visual arts range chronologically from the early 19th century up to the present, and revolve around the painters of the “Bornholm School”, who worked on the island in the early 1900s. The museum’s works by the Bornholm school provide a rich account of modernism’s breakthrough in art. But the oldest and newest parts of the collection of paintings and sculptures provide an abundant, multifaceted picture of the arts on Bornholm. Every year, the Bornholm Art Museum houses six to eight special art and/or craft art exhibitions relating to Bornholm in various ways. A number of the exhibitions are developed in cooperation with other art museums, both in Denmark and abroad. A collaborative effort with the Glass and Ceramic School in Nexø is realised in an annual graduation exhibition in June, with works by the year’s graduates – budding glass artists and ceramists.