SCULPTURE QUEENS

During Goldens Days Festival we invite you to join us for a free Thorvaldsen Talk on the topic of sculpture queens. 

This English-language discussion panel explores the historical frameworks of women artists working with sculpting. What does it mean to work as a woman artist in a field conventionally inscribed by masculinity from its very inception until today? And what about the representation of women within sculpture? How have these conditions changed—or not—over time? Despite the liberal reputation of the Nordic countries, women have historically faced different and greater challenges within the realm of sculpture, and they continue to be underrepresented in museum collections and historical studies.

The talk is free to join after paid entry to the museum.
Book free tickets for the talk in advance here. 

Artist Jeannette Ehlers
Jeannette Ehlers (born 1973) is a Danish-Trinidadian artist based in Copenhagen. Her work often addresses themes and questions around memory, race and colonialism. She is well-known for co-creating the public art project, a monumental public sculpture, I Am Queen Mary with La Vaugh Belle in 2018. It is the first public statue of a Black woman in Denmark and depicts Mary Thomas, leader of the 1878 St. Croix labor riot.

Kerry Greaves is Assistant Professor of Art History at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on recovering overlooked aspects of Nordic art history, feminist theory and women artists. Her book, The Danish Avant-Garde and World War II: The Helhesten Collective was published by Routledge in 2019. In 2020, she edited the anthology Modern Women Artists in the Nordic Countries, 1900-1960 (Routledge). 

 

Amalie Skovmøller is Assistant Professor of Art History at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen. She has studied sculpture from Antiquity until today, centering on artists’ workshops and crafts communities. Her book Facing the Colours of Roman Portraiture (De Gruyter, 2021) explores representation in ancient, painted Roman marble portraiture, and her upcoming book Connected by Sculpture focusses on public monumental sculpture from workshop till display.

Linda Hinners is an expert in sculpture from the 19th and 20th centuries. She has since 2009 been a curator at Nationalmuseet in Stockholm, developing exhibitions and publishing extensively on sculptors. In 2022, she finished a major research project on women sculptors, which also resulted in the current exhibition at Nationalmuseet called “What a joy to be a sculptor!” and the anthology “Nordic Women Sculptors: Formation; Visibility; Self-creaton”.

 

Karen Busk-Jepsen is an expert on nineteenth-century sculpture. For many years, she has been involved with the Thorvaldsen’s Museum Archive. Her current studies centers on one of the first Danish, women sculptors, Adelgunde Vogt, who studied and worked in Rome and worked as a sculptor in the latter half of the noneteenth century.