Gerda Wegener: Artist and Muse

7 Nov-16 May. The most significant exhibition to date dedicated to the painter and illustrator Gerda Wegener (1885-1940) whose work was celebrated in her adopted Paris but the subject of controversy in her native Denmark.

Wegener belonged to the Erotica movement and her work featured sensual women often in a state of undress or engaged in sexual acts. However it was her private life that courted most controversy, particularly in Denmark. After their wedding her husband, the landscape painter Einar Wegener, assumed the transgender identity of Lili Elbe, his transition prompted after dressing as a female model for one of his wife's paintings.

Notwithstanding the quality of Wegener's work, her lifestyle and support for her transgender spouse was too much for the art establishment at the time in Copenhagen, although three of her works were purchased by the French state and are now held in the Centre Pompidou collection.

In addition to her erotica paintings, the artist undertook a large number of commissions for advertisements and magazine and book illustrations, many of which are on dispaly at ARKEN.

The story of Gerda and Lili is the subject of an upcoming Hollywood movie, The Danish Girl, which will be premiered in Denmark in February.

Tues-Sun 10.00-17.00. Wed 10.00-21.00