Laurits Andersen (L. A. Ring 1854-1933) and Hans Andersen (H. A. Brendekilde 1857-1942) met at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts where they became friends and for a period, shared a studio and a room in Copenhagen. They used each other as models and based their work on the same range of motifs.

The exhibition focuses on the unusual artistic partnership between these two artists that takes place in the period of 1880-1920, a groundbreaking time in Danish art. It follows their endeavours from the political breakthrough works of the 1880s to the more symbolic interpretation of life or atmospheric landscapes of the 1890s where the change of the seasons and daily routine become allegories for the stages and metamorphoses of life.

A common factor in both Ring and Brendekilde’s work, is their social engagement. They depicted life, work and death amongst the poorest of the countryside where they themselves grew up, and the motifs represent some of the foremost examples of Realism in Danish visual arts.

Towards the turn of the century, new paths opened up and the companionship subsided in favour of other artistic aspirations. The brotherhood broke up. The world had changed, as had the rural village society, along with Ring and Brendekilde’s starting point for their art.

Discover your own similarities and differences between the two artists when you step into their artistic universe alternating between Realism and Symbolism, atheism and hollyhock idyll, loneliness and love, life and death.