Janus la Cour

In collaboration with Museum Kunst der Westküste, we look forward to taking a fresh look at the Danish painter Janus la Cour (1837–1909). The Nivaagaard Collection owns a major work by the artist as well as a fine collection of nineteenth-century Danish art from the generation preceding la Cour, including his teacher P.C. Skovgaard, with whom la Cour lived during his student years.

La Cour consistently painted natural landscapes: utterly still and hushed, without people and devoid of any trace of modernity. He often created entire series of the same subject, depicting it in varying light conditions and using different angles and croppings, sometimes painted years apart. Exhibiting an almost scientific fascination with his subject, he frequently zoomed in on specific geological details such as a stone or a cliff, directing his gaze downwards to the earth.

The exhibition presents his works alongside selected paintings by prominent Danish artist Per Kirkeby (1938–2018), who admired la Cour and owned several of his works.

The exhibition is curated in collaboration with the German author and art historian Florian Illies, known for books such as 1913: The Year Before the Storm and Love in a Time of Hate, and Museum Kunst der Westküste.