Anna Ancher

Anna Kirstine Brøndum was born on August 18, 1859, at Brøndums Hotel in Skagen, the only Skagen artist who was a native born and bred in the village. Encouraged by visiting painters, she studied art in Copenhagen and in Paris under Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.

Married to painter Michael Ancher, Anna developed an extraordinary, modern color palette focused on intimate domestic life, elderly women plucking gulls, and shafts of sunlight illuminating modest rooms. Her 1891 masterwork Solskin i den blå stue (Sunshine in the Blue Room) demonstrates her virtuosic ability to dissolve physical substance into pure, vibrant light. In 1913, she was awarded the royal Ingenio et Arti medal.