The Art of Dealing Art

A Women’s History Month reminiscence from an incredible day and exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Art in Denmark, July 2018.

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My thirty -five years in the art business have brought me to museums across a fairly wide swath of the planet. In the Summer of 2018, the last of five countries on a major family and art viewing trip to Europe was Denmark. Before leaving on the trip, anyone to whom I mentioned Denmark was one of the countries on our itinerary invariably told me, “DO NOT MISS going to the Louisiana!” The museum is about an hour from Copenhagen, situated on a bluff overlooking the ocean with views to Sweden.

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We brought our swimming gear, as the museum has a trail and access to ocean swimming, which we had also been told not to miss. Great art, lunch on a terrace, and a bracing ocean swim…what a day! The bonus prize was the first major exhibition of Gabriele Münter’s work in more than 50 years. She’s a giant in the art world, yet still underrated and misunderstood. It was an eye opening experience.

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Gabriele Münter was a German expressionist painter who rose to the forefront of the European avant-garde at the beginning of the 20th century. She was a founding member of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter, and lived with the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky. Influenced by the Fauves and Matisse, her spontaneous canvases with vibrant figurative and abstract forms were characterized by high keyed color and free flowing brushwork.

If you are ever in Denmark, I’d like to offer the following suggestion: “DO NOT MISS going to the Louisiana!”