Kai Nielsen (sculptor)
| Kai Nielsen | |
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Kai Nielsen, c. 1915
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| Born |
16 November 1882 Svendborg, Denmark |
| Died | 2 November 1924 (aged 41) Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Education | Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts |
| Known for | Sculpting |
Kai Nielsen (26 November 1882 – 2 November 1924) was a Danish sculptor.
Kai Nielsen was born on 26 November 1882 in Svendborg, the son of Christian Nielsen, a watchmaker, and his wife Ane Marie. At 15 he became an apprentice painter but was artistically inclined and began to paint landscapes and portraits. At the same time he studied at the technical school in Svendborg where he was taught moulding by Edvard Eriksen, later famous for creating The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen. In 1901 he moved to Copenhagen and took drawing classes to prepare for the Art Academy. When he applied, they rejected his drawings but accepted him into the Sculpture School in view of a portrait bust he had made in Svendborg and he became a student of Carl Aarsleff. At the Academy he began a lifelong friendship with Einar Utzon-Frank who also studied sculpture. Together they explored the modern collections at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek where Nielsen was particularly impressed by the works of Auguste Rodin and Constantin Meunier.
Nielsen developed a socially conscious style (The Blind Girl, 1907, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek). He had his breakthrough with Naked (1908) which was acquired by the Danish National Gallery. The Marble Girl attracted attention for its redefinition of the relationship between subject and material with its equal emphasis of the sculpture as woman figure and as stone block. It also introduced the rounded female forms which continued to be a dominant subject throughout his production.
A large portrait bust of Thorvald Bindesbøll erected at Vester Boulevard (now H. C. Andersen Boulevard) in Copenhagen was his first large-scale commission in the portrait genre. It was followed by smaller portrait heads of artist colleagues such as Niels Larsen Stevns and Ludvig Karsten, the boxer Dick Nelson (1918) and more children.
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