PARIS.- As is the case with the
Musée Jacquemart-André, the Ordrupgaard Collection was assembled by two art lovers, the Danish couple Wilhelm (1868–1936) and Henny (1870–1951) Hansen. A businessman and art connoisseur, and an independent and visionary man, Wilhelm Hansen assembled in only two years (between 1916 and 1918) a collection—which was quite unique in Europe—of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works from the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A selection of more than forty works are being presented for the first time in Paris, at the Musée Jacquemart-André.
The exhibition includes works that are relatively unknown in France, ranging from Corot to Cézanne and Matisse, the changing landscapes of Monet, Pissarro, and Sisley, and the tender portraits of Renoir, Morisot, and Gonzalès. The works of emblematic artists such as Degas, Manet, and Courbet, are also being exhibited, ending with a finale devoted to the vibrant and sensual art of Gauguin.
After the Musée Jacquemart-André, the exhibition will be presented in other major museums in Europe and around the world, such as the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa.
THE FOUNDERS: WILHELM AND HENNY HANSEN
Born in Copenhagen on 27 November 1868, Wilhelm Hansen forged a remarkable career in insurance.
An independent and visionary man, he developed a passion for the arts, and French art in particular, which he succeeded in popularising in Denmark, thanks in particular to major exhibitions held in Copenhagen that presented works loaned from major French museums.
He met his wife Henny in 1887 during a performance at the Danish Royal Theatre. They got married on 30 October 1891 and adopted their son, Knud Wilhelm, in 1908.
Wilhelm Hansen’s passion for art began when he was a student: his friend Peter Hansen, who became one of the members of the Danish painters’ collective Fynboerne, introduced him to the artistic milieu. Some of these artists became close friends with Wilhelm and Henny, who, throughout their lives, enhanced their collection with paintings by Danish artists and the major works of the French Impressionists.
ORDRUPGAARD, THE VENUE
An imposing and charming mansion located north of Copenhagen, the Hansens’ private residence housed an art gallery that was open to the general public after its inauguration on 14 September 1918. In accordance with their wishes, the mansion of Ordrupgaard was left to the Danish state, which turned it into a museum in 1953. Between 2003 and 2005, a modernist extension designed by Zaha Hadid was added to the building’s structure. Its mineral appearance reflects the surrounding natural environment, providing an exceptional setting for the museum’s marvellous collection.
ORDRUPGAARD, THE COLLECTION
Henny and Wilhelm Hansen’s first acquisitions focused on the works of artists from the Danish golden age, such as Johan Thomas Lundbye, and contemporary artists, such as L. A. Ring, Viggo Johansen, and Vilhelm Hammershøi.
During his many professional trips to Paris, Wilhelm Hansen subsequently discovered modern French painting. In just two years, between 1916 and 1918, he assembled a collection that was unique in Northern Europe, which included the works of artists such as Manet, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, and Gauguin. He was involved with the most important Parisian art dealers, such as Bernheim-Jeune—from whom he purchased Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, Overcast and Morisot’s Portrait of Madame Marie Hubbard—and Paul Rosenberg who sold him Sisley’s Le Garage des Bateaux-Mouches. Each painting was carefully selected, often upon the recommendation of the art critic Théodore Duret, a friend of the Impressionist group and one of their most fervent admirers. It was he who advised Wilhelm Hansen to buy Manet’s Basket of Pears, one of the artist’s mature works, which became one of the collector’s favourite pictures.
Wilhelm Hansen assembled his collection with great rigour and ambition: his aim was to collect twelve works by each of the most important artists, ranging from Corot to Cézanne. That is why, along with other collectors and art dealers, he founded a consortium in 1918 to buy sets of French art works. The associates, who acquired for instance, Georges Viau’s collection and twenty-eight works from Alphonse Kann’s collection, shared the acquired works and sold the ones they did not wish to keep. Thanks to this approach, Wilhelm Hansen managed to assemble a collection that formed a coherent overview of the beginnings of modern French art, ranging from the pre-Impressionists to Fauvism: Morisot’s Young Girl on the Grass, Gauguin’s The Blue Tree Trunks, Courbet’s Cliffs at Étretat, Cézanne’s Women Bathing, and Matisse’s Flowers and Fruit. All these masterpieces were added to the gallery of the Hansen Collection, which was described in 1918 by the collector Klas Fåhraeus as ‘the finest collection of Impressionist works in the world!’
In 1922, Denmark’s largest private bank, the Danish Landmansbank, went bankrupt. This was a catastrophe for Wilhelm Hansen, who had just taken out a loan with the bank. To pay off his debts as quickly as possible, he was obliged to sell half of his collection of French art, including exceptional works by Corot, Manet, Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin. Once he had overcome this crisis, he acquired forty French paintings, including Corot’s Young Italian Woman Seated Near a Lake, The Windmill, and Hamlet and the Gravedigger, Monet’s Seascape. Le Havre, and Courbet’s exceptional The Ruse, Roe Deer Hunting Episode. These new acquisitions confirmed the unique status of Wilhelm Hansen’s collection, exhibited at Ordrupgaard.
