Our AKN Editor Enjoys The Ordrupgaard Museum In Denmark & The Zaha Hadid Architecture Design

Written by Sheldon Quigley Sunday, 12 December 2010 21:52

The Ordrupgaard is a state-owned art museum located near Copenhagen. The museum houses one of Northern Europe’s most considerable collections of Danish and French art from the19th and beginning of the 20th century. Ordrupgaard was founded 1916-1918 by former Hafnia Insurance managing director, Wilhelm Hansen (1868-1936) and his wife Henny. Hansen obtained many of the collection's pieces in the early 20th century, and it is displayed in its original setting in what was his mansion. Hansen knew lots of artists, often travelled to Paris and gathered a significant French impressionists collection. He was a visionary and set out to create a collection with up to twelve works by each of the most important artists, ranging from Corot to Cézanne. With its manageable scope, the collection provides a coherent overview of early modernist art. Hansen was keen to familiarize Danes with French art, and, ever since its inauguration, the veiled by woods country mansion was opened for visitors once a week. In 1951, after his widow died, it became known that the mansion, its English-style park and the entire art collection would be left to the Danish state on one condition - it had to be turned into a museum. Ordrupgaard would had continue its existence as a little-known countryside museum, if the Danish Ministry of Culture had not launched an international design competition for construction of its extension in 2001. The Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid won it and transformed the museum into the world-renowned destination. The extension opened on 30 August 2005, and with its special architectural style it adds an extra dimension to Ordrupgaard. The extension measures 1,950 sq.m. has improved the space, climate and security conditions so that Ordrupgaard is now able to present special international level exhibitions. The extension is constructed in glass and black lava concrete joined together to form a deconstructivistic and organic body. The museum was originally built as a three-winged trellised country mansion in the neo-classical style. The gallery which houses the French collection is connected to the main building by a small conservatory. Additionally a porter’s lodge, a driver’s residence (now demolished) and a coach house (named “Lavendelhuset”/ The Lavender House) were erected. A shed and a small half-timbered summerhouse comprise the rest of the original buildings on the estate. The Park at Ordrupgaard is laid out in the English style with a smaller French inspired rose garden, originally adorned with a ceramic fountain by Jean Gauguin. From 1941 to 1942 furniture designer Finn Juhl designed and furnished his own house next door to Ordrupgaard. The house is one of the first functionalistic one-family houses in Denmark. Here Finn Juhl lived until his death in 1989. Finn Juhl’s widow Hanne Wilhelm Hansen left the house and it’s interior unchanged. On 3rd of April 2008 the house opened as a separate, additional part of Ordrupgaard Art Museum, thanks to a private donation. The museum café offers good international cuisine, while trees and wooden flowers seem like a live and vibrant painting behind its vast windows. Website: www.ordrupgaard.dk/

The Ordrupgaard has three different permanent exhibitions: the Danish Fine Arts Collection, the French Fine Arts Collection and the Collection of Furniture and Handicrafts. Wilhelm Hansen established his collection of Danish art covering the19th to the beginning of the 20th century during the period of 1892 to 1916. The Danish Golden Age is comprehensively represented by the works of C.V. Eckersberg, Christian Købke, Johan Thomas Lundbye, P.C. Skovgaard and Wilhelm Marstrand. The main part of the collection shows Wilhelm Hansen’s interest for contemporary art with works by artists such as: L.A. Ring, Vilhelm Hammershøi and Theodor Philipsen, not forgetting the Fynbo Painters Johannes Larsen, Fritz Syberg and Peter Hansen, Wilhelm Hansen’s childhood friend. During the 1st World War, Wilhelm Hansen focused his interest on French art. From 1916 to 1918 he purchased French paintings, pastels, drawings and sculptures laying the foundation for the French Fine Arts Collection. His first purchases were paintings by Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir. Wilhelm Hansen’s main focus was on French Impressionism. However to put Impressionism into perspective, his collection also comprised the genres immediately preceding and following. Therefore Ordrupgaard is able to show paintings by Eugène Delacroix, representing Romanticism, Théodore Rousseau the Barbizon-school, Gustave Courbet Realism, Édouard Manet Modernism and Paul Gauguin Symbolism, following the advice of the French art critic Théodore Duret (1838-1927). Parallel to Wilhelm Hansen’s interest in Danish and French art was his interest for furniture and handicrafts. He was especially interested in ceramics, chandeliers and furniture executed by Thorvald Bindesbøll (1846-1908). One of the treasures of Ordrupgaard is the famous painting by Edgar Degas, “The Bellelli Family”. Degas' group composition was an amazing development of old the methods used by his predecessors, drawing on the centuries-old tradition of figurative painting and combining them with the artistic investigations and insights which came following Impressionism, from Seurat to early Mondrian. The personages shown in the Family Portrait (the author's original title) are Degas' aunt Laura Belleli together with her daughters Giovanna and Giulia and her husband Gennaro. She has just returned from the funeral of her father, Ilera Degas. The Ordrupgaard will be showing until January 23rd 2011 the exhibition “Encountering Japan. Degas, Monet, Gauguin…” that gives examples of how the Impressionist were inspired by Japanese wood cuts. The exhibition tells the story of this significant encounter between East and West. Ordrupgaard will present more than 150 wood cuts and show how the Japanese influence is expressed in works of artists such as Manet, Degas, Morisot and Gauguin etc. from the collection of the museum. The Ordrupgaard connects French and Danish Fine Arts with exceptional style.