A Clash of Styles

In this gallery, the young Willumsen meets the older Willumsen. It is an encounter between two very different artistic expressions. The naturalistic and socially realistic images of his youth stand in contrast to the older artist’s colorful, caricatured, and expressive style.

As a young artist, Willumsen works with several traditional genres of the time. During his studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Artists’ Study School in the first half of the 1880s, he paints subjects such as mythological scenes, interiors, portraits, and figure studies. In the latter half of the 1880s, he turns his attention to everyday life. The work and lives of ordinary people become a key part of his subject matter. He depicts, among other things, workers at the Hellerup Glassworks and life around a butcher shop near Nikolaj Tower. His style is naturalistic yet marked by a clear social conscience; Willumsen is interested in people and the conditions under which they live and work.

This social engagement also appears in some of his later works, though never with the same intensity as in his youth. As he ages, his art becomes increasingly inward. From the 1940s onwards, many of his works revolve around his own identity, life story, artistic origins, and the legacy he wishes to leave behind. At the same time, his artistic expression undergoes a significant transformation. The naturalistic style of his youth gives way to a more imaginative and expressive visual language. Figures often take on distorted proportions, the composition becomes asymmetrical and caricatured, and the colors become bold and high contrast. This lends his late works an almost cartoon-like quality.