Peter Syrak Hansen and his family.
Following the last blog regarding the early members of the Funen artists, this blog looks at some of the younger members and how they were often connected.
Peter Syrak Hansen
One of the leading figures of the Funen painters was Peter Syrak Hansen and it was his home and workshop, Mesterhuset, which became a cultural meeting place for the Funen painters. Syrak Hansen was born in Swanninge, a Danish village on South Funen, on September 10th 1853. He trained as a decorative painter at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen under George Hinkler.
The Double Portrait of Count Preben Bille-Braheand his second wife Johanne Caroline neé Falbe by Christoffer Eckersberg (1817)
After qualifying Syrak received many decorative work commissions in South Funen’s to decorate manor houses and churches. He was also given funds by the prominent and wealthy art collector and art patron, Count Bille-Brahe of Hvedholm, and continued his artistic studies in Germany, Austria and France, where he concentrated on studying church decorations. Following his European travels, he later settled down as a master painter and decorative painter in Faaborg in southern Funen and based himself in the building, which became known as the Mesterhuset. He bought Mesterhuset, situated at Lagonis Minde 7 in 1875, and he became a sought-after decorative painter working primarily in churches and manor houses on South Funen.
Sonnige Strandansicht by Peter Syrak Hansen
Syrak Hansen became so busy with all the commissions he received he had to look for some help and he hired a journeyman painter. The painter was Fritz Syberg who worked with Syrak in his workshop from 1882. It was here that Fritz Syberg got to know his future wives, Anna and Marie Hansen.
Faarborg Harbour by Karl Schou (1917)
Syrak Hansen married Marie Birgitte née Rasmussen and he and his wife had five children. Marie Hansen, the eldest, was born in 1865 and became a parliamentary stenographer whose first husband was the painter Karl Schou. Schou was born in Copenhagen in 1870. After normal schooling he became a student at Valdemar Sichelkow’s painting school from 1884 to 1886 and then studied under Malthe Engelsted at The National Drawing Teacher Course, Copenhagen from 1886 to 1887, Finally he attended Kristian Zahrtmann’s School from 1887 to 1900. During those three years at Zahrtmann’s school he became friends with the Funen painters.
Three persons in conversation at an evening party by Hans Nikolaj Syrak Hansen (1903)
A year after the birth of their first child, Marie Hansen gave birth to their first son, Hans Nikolaj Syrak Hansen who became apprenticed to his father. Hans attended Zahrtmann’s School in Copenhagen from about 1885 to the spring of 1887, but he had to give up his art studies and return home in order to take over the painting company from his father in 1891.
The Hay on the Meadow, South Funen by Peter Hansen
Syrak and Marie Hansen’s third child, their second son, Peter Marius Hansen was born on May 13th 1868. He attended the Copenhagen Technical School before studying under Kristian Zahrtmann at the Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler between 1884 and 1890.
Double portrait of two children. The artist’s stepdaughters by Peter Hansen (1889)
Peter Hansen married Elisa Nikoline, who had previously been married to an engineer, Ludvig Conrad Neckelmann, whom she divorced. In 1898, shortly after the divorce, Peter and Elise married. Ludvig and his wife, Elisa, had had two daughters, Marie Christine and Elizabeth and Peter completed a double portrait of his stepchildren.
By the window. Double portrait of the artist’s daughter, Elena and stepdaughter, Marie Christine by Peter Hansen (1902)
Peter and Elisa went on to have their own two daughters, Elena Italia in 1899 and Anna Margrethe in 1906. In 1902 Hansen completed a double portrait of his twenty-year-old elder stepdaughter, Marie Christine and his own three-year-old child Elena Italia.
The Ploughman Turns by Peter Hansen (1902)
Peter Marius Hansen belonged to the group of Danish painters who were called the Funen Painters, since they came from and mainly worked on the island of Funen. One of the important qualities Peter displayed was his respect for the steadily, busily working human being and he made it a key motif in his art. For him the Peasant was the epitome of this ideal, when he would depict local Danish farmers and the mountain farmers from around the Danish artists’ colony in the Italian village of Cività d’Antino in Abruzzi.
Fritz Syberg self portrait (1910)
Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Syberg, generally known as Fritz Syberg, was born on July 28th 1862, in Faaborg. He came from a poor background and was first apprenticed as a house painter under Syrak Hansen. From there, in 1882, he attended the Copenhagen Technical School where Holger Grønvold taught him drawing. In the Spring of 1884 he enrolled for a short period at the Danish Academy but then attended the Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler where he became one of the first Fynboerne, along with Peter Hansen, Johannes Larsen, and Poul S. Christiansen to study under Kristian Zahrtmann.
Dodsfald (Death) by Fritz Syberg (1881)
In the early 1890s may of Syberg’s paintings were dark and this can be seen in his 1892 work entitled Dodsfald (Death) which depicts his mother, Johanne Marie, on her death bed in 1881 in the Fåborg’s poorhouse.
Fritz Syberg “Jeg vil synge dem alle, alle!, sagde Moderen” (1898). Illustration for Hans Christian Andersen’s Historien om en moder. (I will sing them all, all of them!, said the mother) (1898). Illustration for Hans Christian Andersen’s The Story of a Mother by Fritz Syberg
In addition to the sale of his paintings, Syberg accepted many book illustration commissions, the most famous being his depictions for Hans Christian Andersen’s tragic tale, The Story of a Mother, which no doubt, Syberg could relate to his own childhood. These depictions became one of the most celebrated collections of illustrations in Denmark’s history.
Spring by Fritz Syberg
Watching Birds on the Windowsill by Fritz Syberg
Having struck up a close friendship with Syrak Hansen’s daughter Anna whilst working as Syrak’s apprentice, their friendship turned to love and the couple married in 1894. The couple went on to have seven children. In the 1890s and the early decade of the twentieth century Fritz Syberg made a number of trips to other European countries such as Italy, The Netherlands, Germany and France, sometimes with his family..
Anna Syberg by her husband Fritz Syberg (1896)
Syrak and Marie Brigitte Hansen had their fourth child, a second daughter, Anna Louise Birgitte Hansen in January 1870 and she, like her brother Peter, became part of the Funen painters. Anna Syberg grew up amidst a very colourful and energetic artistic environment that differed from ordinary middle-class conventions. Her father, Peter Syrak Hansen, was a master painter, and a renowned figure in the town of Faaborg. Fortunately for Anna, her parents believed that education was of prime importance to both their daughters as well as their sons.
Crocus, Hyacinths and Tulips by Anna Syberg (1898)
Anna loved to learn and one of her favourite pastimes was decorative painting. In 1884 she enrolled on a two-year course at a technical school in Faaborg, and in 1889 she was receiving tuition in Copenhagen from the sculptor Ludvig Brandstrup and the painter Karl Jensen. Her artistic education was topped off when she received singing lessons, learnt to play the piano to a high standard and learnt to sing lieder and Danish songs.
Wild Roses by Anna Syberg (1898)
Anna Syberg became a key figure in the Funen Painters artists’ colony. Her paintings, other than a few figure scenes, depicted flowers and plants, often in the vases and pots around her home, or in her garden and ones she saw when out walking in the countryside. She worked mainly in watercolours, using multiple layers that would often include sketched lines of pencil, transparent layers of watercolour and black ink contours ensuring the depiction of the floral was of the utmost accuracy.
Grapes in the Greenhouse by Anna Syberg (1903)
The subject of her depictions were often of stage-managed as she experimented with the floral arrangements. In many of her works she would often let the depiction of her flowers and plants extend beyond the edge of the paper in a form of dynamic cropping. Her floral painting were neither symbolic nor botanical studies. In Anna Syberg’s pictures, flowers are not charged with symbolic significance, nor are they stringently restrained botanical studies with all its scientific accuracy. In her works, Anna Syberg portrays the simple beauty of the flowers, a testament to their beauty. In 1894 Anna Hansen married Fritz Syberg.
Fritz and Anna Syberg
So this life as a Funen painter amongst family and friends was to be part of much loved idyllic lifestyle for Anna Syberg. What could possibly interrupt this peaceful and fulfilling way of life? And yet………..
At the turn of the century in Denmark, like many other European countries and those across the other side of the Atlantic, the stature of women in art, and even in life itself, was continually being questioned by men. For many men, including even some fellow artists, women simply painted as a hobby or to add to their social graces but for women in the early 1900s practicing art was problematic. For Anna it was one thing to be a talented artist, it was another thing to have the same respect bestowed upon her for her work as that of the men. Things came to a head in Faarborg when the town got their own museum and paintings had to be selected for display in the museum.
Mads Rasmussen
Mads Rasmussen, an important businessman in Faaborg, and his wife Kristine, held a party one evening and among the guests were the Funen Painters’ inner circle including amongst others Fritz Syberg, Peter Hansen and Jens Birkholm. Together with Johannes Larsen they were all to become part of the Museum’s purchasing committee which, in turn, came to act as the steering group for the Museum’s acquisitions, their curation and the fixtures and fittings for the gallery. It was very unusual that the “money man” would let a group of artists dictate as to what works were to fill the gallery.
Artists hanging their works in the galleries of Faaborg Museum, May 1915. From the left: Peter Hansen, Peter Tom-Petersen, Johannes Larsen, Astrid Noack, Nicolaus Lützhøft, Christian Ernlund, Carl Petersen og Fritz Syberg.
Here was the problem – the purchasing committee for Faaborg Museum, made up of the Funen painters, were all male artists from the group, and they didn’t believe in the quality of the works produced by the female members of the group. In the minutes of the meetings of the purchasing group, comments were recorded stating that
“…At the negotiations, Peter Hansen and Birkholm wanted to be recorded in the minutes that they voted against the acceptance of Mrs. A.(Alhed) Larsen and Miss Christine Larsen’s works. Peter Hansen also against Mrs. Syberg…”
Also in the minutes, Peter Hansen, Anna’s elder brother, noted:
“…AS (Anna Syberg) and the other ladies had no significance for Danish art…”
Gallery at the Faarborg Museum
No reasoning was ever recorded as to why they thought so little of the works of the female Funen painters but the damage was done. Presumably, one has to recognise that at that time there was generally a reluctance for women to be able to produce an artistic work. The one thing to remember also is that flower painting traditionally had a lower rank in the art world and this could have been in the minds of the male purchasing committee.
Anna was horrified that her own brother would critique her work so harshly and the rift between siblings became bitter. She wrote to her brother Peter:
“…Where you create yourself. You voted against me at the Faaborg Museum based on high idealistic notions of safeguarding the best interests of art in Denmark. “You did not want to hide from me”, you wrote that I and the other ladies had no significance for Danish art…”
Faaborg Museum Inauguration (1910) by Peter Hansen
Anna Syberg is not in the picture of the artist group Fynbomalerne, despite her being a central part of the group. She should have supposedly sat on the empty chair in the bottom right corner.
The empty chair.
During the heated exchanges between Anna and Peter, he was working on a painting depicting the inauguration of the Faarborg Museum. The depiction was supposed to pay tribute to a group of artists who were both well-known and acclaimed painters. Anna Syberg’s outburst of anger over the words of her brother and members of the purchasing committee came while her brother was working on the painting, and it is believed that he deliberately chose not to paint his sister as part of the group and yet, to rub salt into the wounds, he provocatively indicated her absence with the empty chair, despite her being present at the inauguration and was said to have sat tanned and dressed in festive clothes with a large hat in the front row of the group. All the other female artists in the group are in the painting.
Anna Syberg (née Hansen) 1870-1914
Anne Syberg died on July 4th 1914 following a failed operation to treat a gallbladder infection. She was just forty-four years of age. Sadly the recognition she deserved as a gifted artist never came until after her death. In 1915 a retrospective of her art was held and it was a success, and sales were high, including Faaborg Museum which purchased sixteen of her works. quite central in the country. After her death, Fritz Syberg married Anna’s elder sister Marie who he had known since the days of working for is father-in-law.
In 1873 Syrak Hansen’s youngest child, Poul Gerhardt, was born. He did not follow his siblings into the world of art. He was married to Dagmar and the couple had two children: Helga and Louise. Poul is believed to have died at the young age of 33 in 1906.
I could not have put together the two blogs about the Funen painters without the information I gleaned from various websites:
my daily art display 