Louisiana's Danish Collection 1910-1960

During summer 2010 Louisiana's major collection of modernist Danish art was shown in various parts of the museum. Many of these important works, which formed part of the original museum collection and concept, were presented for the last time before travelling to new destinations around Denmark.

When Louisiana opened in 1958 it was as a museum of modern Danish art. For several years the founder of the museum, Knud W. Jensen, had collected works by Danish modernists who now found a home in Humlebæk. But after just a few years, in connection with the big Documenta exhibition in Kassel in Germany in 1959, the Louisiana Museum changed its orientation and now saw it as its clear mission to present international art.

Although for many years the museum continued to acquire works by Danish artists, in time it focused exclusively on those Danish artists who had an international career – Asger Jorn and Per Kirkeby for example. Later, from around the turn of the millennium, this focus has increased, inasmuch as Danish contemporary art has played an ever-growing role outside the borders of the country.

Louisiana’s collection of Danish art up to around 1960 includes a wide range of major works in the history of Danish art – works that deserve to be shown more frequently than is possible in Humlebæk, states Poul Erik Tøjner, director of the museum. The museum therefore decided in 2010 to implement a major long-term loan plan and has offered the state-recognized Danish museums the opportunity to choose pictures and sculptures from a pool of around a hundred works. In this way Louisiana’s Danish works would not only see the light of day; but find more congenial or more meaningful company than they had before.

Over the summer of 2010 a large number of these works could be seen together at Louisiana; from where they travlled to their new respective destinations, lent out for the next ten years.