Laurits Tuxen

Place: Copenhagen

Born: 1853

Death: 1927

Biography:

Laurits Tuxen was a Danish painter and sculptor specialising in figure painting. He was also associated with the Skagen Painters. He was the first head of Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler, an art school established in the 1880s to provide an alternative to the education offered by the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. The still life- and flowerpainter Nicoline Tuxen (1847-1931) was his older sister.
Tuxen grew up in Copenhagen and studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Art where together with P. S. Krøyer he was considered to be one of the best painters.
He first visited Skagen in 1870, returning on several occasions. In the 1880s and 1890s, he travelled widely painting portraits for Europe's royal families including Christian IX of Denmark, Queen Victoria and the Russian royalty. In 1901, after the death of his first wife Ursule de Baisieux from Belgium, he married the Norwegian Frederikke Treschow and shortly afterwards purchased Madam Bendsen's house in Skagen in the north of Jutland, converting it into a stately summer residence.
In 1914 he made a study trip to Greece to paint the entry of George I of Greece into Salonika, for the Christian castle. He made lively and well-characterized portraits, among them his self-portrait in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and portraits of P. S. Krøyer, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. He also made portraits in sculpture, including a portrait group of Krøyer and Michael Ancher.
Tuxen went on to paint a number of landscapes in and around Skagen, but also completed a number of paintings of his family, friends and garden flowers.
Tuxen painted mainly landscapes in Skagen, but also portraits of European royal personalities, namely Christian IX of Denmark, Queen Victoria, Czar Nicolas II, etc. Some of his works are exhibited at:
In 2014, Skagens Museum held the first major exhibition of Tuxen's works for 25 years titled "Farver, friluft og fyrster" (Colour, Countryside and Crown).
King Christian IX of Denmark with family (1886)
The Wedding of Tsar Nicholas II (1895)
Leaving the table (1906)
The North Sea in Stormy Weather. After Sunset. Højen (1909)
Bishop Absalon topples the god Svantevit at Cape Arkona
The drowned is carried ashore (1913)

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