Skagens Museum

Founded on 20 October 1908, ‘Skagens Museum’ is an art museum in Skagen (Jutland, Denmark) that exhibits an extensive collection of works by members of the colony of Skagen Painters who lived and worked in the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including Marie and P. S. Krøyer, Anna and Michael Ancher, Laurits Tuxen, Viggo Johansen, and Holger Drachmann. The museum also hosts special exhibitions and its facilities include a café in the Garden House, and an old building which for a while served as home residence and studio of Anna and Michael Ancher. The first exhibitions were arranged in the local technical school then, after P.S. Krøyer’s death in 1909, his house in Skagen Plantation was used as a temporary venue for the museum. In 1919, Degn Brøndum donated the old garden of his hotel for the construction of a purpose-built museum: the architect Ulrik Plesner, an active member of the artistic community in Skagen who had already designed a number of buildings in the area, was charged with its design. The building was financed by a combination of private donors and foundations with Degn Brøndum, Laurits Tuxen and the Ny Carlsberg Foundation as the largest contributors: construction started in 1926 and the new museum was officially opened on 22 September 1928. In 1982, the exhibition rooms were extended with an annex designed by the Royal Surveyor, architect Jacob Blegvad. Blegvad also planned the later extension to the museum that was inaugurated in 1989. In 1997, the museum administration moved into the Technical School. Today Skagens Museum has more than 1,800 works of art at its disposal: all important members of the artist colony are represented in its collections with central works, including Maria and P. S. Krøyer, Anna and Michael Ancher, Laurits Tuxen, Viggo Johansen and Holger Drachmann. In 2014, the museum underwent substantial extensions to the west of the original building: planned by architects Friis & Moltke, the work included a new building with an additional 2,000 m2 of floor space on the ground floor, first floor and in the basement. It currently provides space for special exhibitions and for the museum’s shop on the ground floor as well as administrative offices on the first floor. The museum was thus extended from the original 509 m2 to 917 m2, allowing up to 50% of the museum’s collection of 2,000 works to be displayed to visitors while offering better facilities for exhibiting sculptures and drawings. The project was completed on February 12, 2016 and today Skagens Museum is Denmark’s fifth most popular art museum with up to 160,000 visitors a year. Frederikshavn Municipality has provided DKK 5 million for the project, supplemented by donations from a number of foundations.

All pictures: photo credit to Art Museums of Skagen