A new digital archive for the Funen painters

A new digital archive for the Funen painters

Thousands of private letters to and from the Funen Painters and their circle are now available to the public.

A major new project, Sources of Danish History, will now for the first time give access to the private sphere of the Funen painters through a comprehensive digitising of private letters to and from artists with a connection to the circle of Funen painters. The project is funded by the New Carlsberg Fund.

For more than a year, the Johannes Larsen Museum, Faaborg Museum and the Local Historical Archive/ Archipelago Museum in Faaborg have been working on digitising, transcribing and adding comments to the large collection of letters and diaries relating to artists represented at Faaborg Museum and the Johannes Larsen Museum. In addition, the database is supplemented with related biographies of the artists and there are photos of the works of art that are mentioned in the written sources.

Love letter from Johannes Larsen to Alhed Warberg

In the new database, you can find a letter from Johannes Larsen to Alhed Warberg from February 17, 1897 - the year before they were married. Johannes Larsen had drawn the snowdrop flower that Alhed had sent him.

“I don't understand why you regret sending the little letter, it made me ridiculously happy, and I put the snowdrop in a little vase with water, it stands here on the table and looks most excellent."

50 years of correspondence

With the public launch of the database, it will now be possible to sit at home on the sofa and delve into exciting material from artists including Anna and Fritz Syberg, Peter Hansen, Alhed and Johannes Larsen, Jens Birkholm and others, as well as a circle of people with connections to the artists. The database focuses on the period 1885-1927, whose beginning is marked by the Artists' Free Study School and whose ending is the phasing out of the artists' colony in Kerteminde.

The New Carlsberg Fund, with its project called Sources of Danish History (KTDK), took the initiative in the digitalisation process. The fund gives financial support and has created a digital platform available for the work of digitalising source materials and making them available to the public. The project will continue until autumn, 2018, since the New Carlsberg Fund has made further grants to the museums to make it possible to digitalise the great majority of the large volume of materials.