A work without borders. JF Willumsen's painting “The Wedding of the King's Son”. 1888 and 1949.

May 13, 2009 – January 3, 2010

In the exhibition, the audience can literally follow 8 different trails – each visualized with its own color. The trails lead to 8 exhibition stations, which present different approaches to painting. Click on one of the colored stars on the page to follow a trail.

 JF Willumsen's monumental painting The wedding of the king's son(1888-1949) is a controversial image with a checkered past. In the 121 years since it was created, the painting has been the subject of both rejection and attention, repression and fascination.

History of painting

In 1888 Willumsen performed The wedding of the king's son, which he submitted to Charlottenborg to have it included in the spring exhibition. However, it was unsuccessful, and he was so upset by the rejection that he declared that it was the last time he would submit a work of art.

In the autumn of 1889, when it was shown at Willumsen's own exhibition at the art dealer Kleis, the picture was criticized by Karl Madsen – the later director of the National Gallery of Denmark. He called the king's son "an extremely unfortunate figure, an important decorated herbalist with an impertinent face" (Politiken 28.10. 1889). However, Karl Madsen believed that the picture as a whole was worthy of being displayed at Charlottenborg.

The criticism prompted Willumsen to cover the king's son with a piece of black star-shaped paper, and much later, during a stay in Copenhagen in 1948-1949, he cut this part and the king's son's mother out of the picture. Instead, he inserted a 60 cm wide canvas, where he painted the king's son and the bride again. To improve the composition, he also increased the canvas on the left by 55 cm. The new left side, as well as the king's son and his bride and a shouting servant from 1948-49, stand in sharp contrast to the right side of the picture. Here, however, JF Willumsen has added another servant.

Exhibition strategy

With its special history of creation and special blend of styles, the painting is a completely unique work in Danish art history and a confrontation with familiar notions of art. Like a Chinese box, it continues to open up new interpretations of itself as a painting, of Willumsen as an artist, and of the concept of the work itself.
JF Willumsens Museum has therefore initiated a project that explores the many layers and possibilities of the painting. Ten art historians have taken up and examined, analyzed, interpreted and put the painting into perspective from different angles and methods.
In addition, the painting has been the subject of a number of conservation studies to determine which overpaintings and corrections Willumsen made 60 years after he began the painting.
Based on this research, the museum has put together an exhibition that, as a mind map has the monumental image as its center and from there threads extend in all directions.
Unlike a linear and chronologically organized exhibition, this exhibition has no starting and ending point. Nor has any attempt been made to present a definitive and exhaustive history of the image.
Rather, fragments, possibilities and angles of approach are presented, which hopefully only open up for even more interpretations and understandings of the image and of Willumsen's art.
In addition, the project attempts to shake up familiar ideas about style, chronology and history in art. Latent in this lies the possibility of a confrontation with the fixed categories and grand narratives that art historians often have a penchant for.
The exhibition and accompanying catalogue offer unconventional and contrasting analyses and juxtapositions that invite the visitor and reader into the picture. The painting is a very special work that changes expression and meaning, depending on the gaze directed at it. The work resists every attempt to establish a clear interpretation, and constantly opens up new perspectives.

Article contributors to the catalog

Project manager and curator, cand.mag. Susanne Bruhn, PhD student Karen Benedicte Busk-Jepsen, project coordinator, cand.mag. Anne Gregersen, museum curator, mag.art. Gry Hedin, author and art editor, mag.art. Peter Michael Hornung, museum director, cand.phil. Annette Johansen, art mediator, cand.phil. Annette Rosenvold Hvidt, author and art critic, mag.art. Bente Scavenius, mag.art. student Jens Tang and associate professor, mag.art. Jens Toft.

The project is supported by the Danish Cultural Heritage Agency, the Knud Højgaard Foundation and the Beckett Foundation.