COPENHAGEN.- Way ahead of her time, Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen fought for artistic recognition in a male-dominated profession and for women’s right to education and a career. While internationally acclaimed for her sculptures, she was not granted her rightful place in the annals of art history. This special exhibition at the Glyptotek aims to revive her reputation.

It is the largest solo exhibition of work by Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen (1863 – 1945) since 1946. Visitors are invited into the artist’s studio, where they can discover the preparatory works for her monumental sculptures. It is also an opportunity to get to know this uncompromising artist who, though in great demand and highly acclaimed in her lifetime, was then omitted from history. Using sketches, models and casts, the curator Emilie Boe Bierlich and the theatre designer Christian Friedländer have created an exhibition inspired by the industrial workshop atmosphere in which Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen created her works.

“The exhibition chiefly spotlights the brute strength of Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen as a sculptor. Large-scale original models, huge drafts for monuments and her lifelong studies of shape and life. Moulds, fracture surfaces, wax and plaster drafts, and bronze works on every conceivable scale testify to her international calibre. We can enjoy a totally close encounter with the artist’s working process and crawl around the huge models just as she did,” says the curator of the exhibition, Emilie Boe Bierlich (postdoc fellow).

A modern woman

Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen was married to the composer Carl Nielsen, who was both her muse and her nemesis. Throughout her life, she attempted to find a balance between art and love. Not only was she progressive on her own behalf; she also fought for women’s right to academic education. Together with the major female artists of the time, she founded the Society of Women Artists and worked to secure women’s admission to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and their right to exhibit in an era dominated by male artists. Despite Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen’s role as one of our most important and successful sculptors, she never gained the recognition and legitimacy in art history she deserves.

Prestigious pioneering work




Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen was the first female sculptor in the world to be commissioned to create an equestrian statue of a king and bronze gates for a cathedral – two of the profession’s most prestigious assignments. Even though many people are familiar with the equestrian statue of King Christian IX on the Christiansborg Riding Track in Copenhagen or have passed through the bronze gates into Ribe Cathedral, very few people today actually know who Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen was. However, in her lifetime she was a much sought-after and highly successful artist whose work was featured in major exhibitions both in Denmark and abroad and won many awards. She represented Denmark at the Exposition Universelle in Paris and won a bronze medal. She went on to receive a Thorvaldsen Medal (the greatest accolade of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts) and the Regent’s Ingenio et Arti medal, and for almost 30 years lived in the honorary residence of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

The exhibition is the creation of Emilie Boe Bierlich (postdoctoral fellow and curator at the Glyptotek) in collaboration with Christian Friedländer (opera/theatre designer), Troels Faber (design director) and Kasper Riisholt (head of exhibitions at the Glyptotek).

Sound tour (Danish only)

The exhibition also features an audio walk, The Indomitable, following Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen through the Copenhagen of yesteryear. The audio walk is narrated by the actress Lotte Andersen, the script is written by the playwright Amalie Olesen and audio production is by Kontrafej. It is free and can be accessed on the Glyptotek app, which can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play.

Book

The exhibition is accompanied by the publication of a book, ANNE MARIE CARL-NIELSEN, in which well-known artists and renowned researchers investigate the themes that Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen broached. The book features essays, analyses, commissioning works of art and a graphic short story, alongside a selection of Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen’s own letters. The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs and original contributions by artists, including two of Denmark’s most notable living sculptors, Elisabeth Toubro and Kirsten Justesen, and the author/visual artist Amalie Smith and cartoonist Allan van Hansen.

In collaboration with Strandberg Publishing, the book has been published in both a Danish and an English version. It is edited by Emilie Boe Bierlich (postdoctoral fellow and curator) and Anna Manly (curator) and is available in the Glyptoteket’s shop and web shop at a price of DKK 179.