Peter Clossick PPLG on Anna Ancher: Painting Light, at The Dulwich Picture Gallery until 8 March 2026.
It is always exciting to discover a quality artist who has not previously appeared on your radar. Such was my amazement when I entered the exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery of Anna Ancher ( born Anna Brondum, 1859 – 1935).
Unfortunately, my phone picture of her, which is the only self-portrait painted in her late teens, includes my reflection in the glass. But what a powerful piece for one so young!
How many nineteenth and early twentieth-century female artists have one heard of, apart from the select few? Anna is well known in Denmark as a Danish artist associated with the Skagen painters, who were based in Skagen, a large fishing community. An artist colony on the Northern point of Jutland in Denmark.
However, I must confess that I had not heard of her.
She was renowned for depicting everyday life with realism, with her primary interest in depicting light effects.
Anna travelled to Paris and was influenced by Impressionism. She is not forgotten and received recognition in her lifetime.
The painting “Sunlight in the Blue Room”, with light illuminating the space, is an oil on canvas piece from 1891, regarded as one of her most important works. It depicts her daughter Helga in the guest house run by her parents. At the time, this painting was criticised as being “too modern”.
Anna’s mother was one of her most incredible supporters. At the age of 15, she was enrolled in Vilhelm Kyka’s drawing and painting school for women.
Her subjects were interiors and character painting, focusing on domestic, everyday scenes that emphasised colour and light through skilled paint application, scumbling, and glazing, from dark to light.
Death is a recurring theme in her work, and to me, one of the most remarkable paintings in the exhibition was “Grief” from 1902—the image that Anna encountered in a dream, of a mother and daughter bent over a grave.
Anna Ancher came from a well-respected middle-class family that owned and operated the local guest house in Skagen. She stood at the junction of the late nineteenth century to the early modern. I would highly recommend seeing this exhibition as her work is remarkable. Full of emotive feeling in depicting local character and the way light enters and illuminates space.
Peter Clossick NEAC PPTheLondonGroup November 2025
