Scandinavian Women Artists and the Académie Moderne – Abstraction, Gender and the Nordic
In: A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1925-1950Search for other papers by Dorthe Aagesen in
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Abstract
In the 1920s the Académie Moderne in Paris attracted a significant number of Scandinavian students, of whom many were women. Taking the Danish painter Franciska Clausen as a primary example, this essay discusses the special contribution made by the female artists in the environment. The connections between notions of modernity, abstraction and the feminine and the way they were conjoined with ideas of the Nordic are a specific concern here. The essay proposes the view that the women artists in the environment around the Académie Moderne, by means of their art works, their lifestyles and the way they modelled their artistic personas, promoted a conception of abstraction that potentially deconstructed a traditional male/female dichotomy, thus offering an alternative to official positions in the environment.