The museum is home to a fine collection of pastels from the final decades of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. The pastel technique can be traced back to the fifteenth century, but was particularly popular in the eighteenth century where the light and airy pastels were perfectly suited to the overall Rococo aesthetics. Having been largely forgotten, pastel painting had a revival when the French Impressionists adopted the technique again in the 1870s. Around this time, young Danish artists such as Anna Ancher and P.S. Krøyer travelled to Paris, art capital of Europe, where they presumably saw pastels exhibited. In the 1880s they began to experiment with pastels themselves.

This exhibition, presented in one of the museum’s galleries, lets you explore pastels from the museum collections created by the artists Anna Ancher, P.S. Krøyer, Frants Henningsen, Edma Frølich Stage and Carl Thomsen. Pastels are fragile and light-sensitive, which means that they are usually kept in storage and are only very rarely put on display. This show offers a unique opportunity to see these works together.

Here you can explore Ancher’s intimate interiors and portraits of local Skagen women. And you can lose yourself in the rich details of Krøyer’s vast pastel cartoons. Kroeyer’s cartoons were done in preparation for some of his most famous paintings, including Artists’ luncheon, The Hunters of Skagen and Midsummer Eve Bonfire on Skagen’s Beach. The latter will be featured in the exhibition from 18 July, where it returns to the museum after having undergone major conservation work.