Hans Andersen Brendekilde (1857 - 1942)

Hans Andersen Brendekilde

Hans Andersen Brendekilde, born Hans Andersen, was a Danish impressionist painter and representative of the Socialist Realist style.

Hans was a distant relative of the famous storyteller Hans Christian Andersen and also from a very poor family. However, his abilities were noticed, and he was admitted to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, from which he graduated with honors, becoming a sculptor. However, Hans immediately began to paint, and depicted the harsh conditions of life in rural Denmark between 1880 and 1920. This was the beginning of the social realist style.

In 1884 he was living in Copenhagen with his friend, the painter Laurits Andersen Ring (1854-1933), at which time Hans took a second surname, Brendekilde, to avoid confusion.

Brendekilde was a committed socialist and produced many paintings depicting poor people working in the fields or in their homes at tragic moments in life. His most famous painting is The Weary One, which he completed in 1889. Through his work, Brendekilde had a great influence on many of his contemporaries, including Edvard Munch.

The talented and versatile artist also worked as an illustrator and gave a movement to arts and crafts in Denmark. Working for many years in the famous ceramics factory of Herman A. Koehler, he attracted other artists to this activity. And at the end of his life, the artist began to paint more positive pictures: flowers, playing children, fields under the sun.