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Gerda Wegener

Gerda Wegener
Gerda Wegener.jpg
Wegener in 1904
Born Gerda Marie Fredrikke Gottlieb
(1886-03-15)15 March 1886
Hammelev (town of Harderslev), Denmark
Died 28 July 1940(1940-07-28) (aged 54)
Frederiksberg, Denmark
Occupation artist, illustrator, painter
Spouse(s) Einar Wegener (1904-1930; marriage annulled)
Fernando Porta (1931-1936; divorced)

Gerda Marie Fredrikke Gottlieb (15 March 1886 – 28 July 1940) was a Danish fine-artist, illustrator and painter best known for erotica. Her artwork largely contains images of fashionable women in the style of art nouveau and later art deco.

Gottlieb grew up in the provinces, near the city of Grenaa, the daughter of Justine (née Østerberg) and Emil Gottlieb, a vicar in the Lutheran church. Her father had Huguenot ancestry and her family was conservative. She had three siblings but was the only child to live to adulthood. She showed artistic talent at a young age and began training. Her family moved to Hobro and later she moved to Copenhagen to pursue her education at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

Her big break as an artist came just after graduating from the Academy in 1907 and 1908 when she won a drawing contest put on by the Politiken newspaper. She then was the center of a controversy called the Peasant Painter Dispute after one of her works, a portrait of Ellen von Kohl, was rejected for exhibitions due to the style of the piece.

Gerda was inspired by fashion and sought work as an illustrator for Vogue, La Vie Parisienne and other magazines. She had become a well-known artist in Paris but was less successful in Denmark, where people found her work too controversial. She held exhibitions of her work at popular art studios around Europe. In 1925 she won a prize for her artwork in competition at the 1925 World Fair in Paris. She was known for her illustrations created for advertisements and was also a sought-after portrait painter. She befriended Ulla Poulsen (1905-2001), a famous Danish ballerina, who became a frequent model for her paintings. Gerda and Lili were also close friends with artist Rudolph Tegner and his wife, Elna.


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