Holsøe, Carl(1863-1935)

Aarhus, Denmark 1863; d Asserbo, Denmark, 1935) Danish Painter. Carl Holsoe, a leading member of the Danish school of painting in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, was highly regarded by colleagues and collectors alike. Holsoe trained at the Royal Academy of Copenhagen with Vilhelm Hammershoi, a very close friend and mentor, from 1882 to 1884. Holsoe continued his instruction at the Peder Severin Kroyer's Artists' Study School. Holsoe, Hammershoi, and Peder Ilsted (1861-1933) shared an increasing interest in the study of light and shade and of their effects on surfaces and objects in an interior. Together, the artists later formed the Danish School of Interior Painting. Beginning in 1888, Holsoe received several grants from the Academy and was able to exhibit his work in Denmark as well as abroad. In 1889, Holsoe received an honorable mention at an exhibition at the Exposition Universelle de Paris; two years later the artist was awarded a medal in Munich, where he exhibited on a regular basis until 1918.* Escaping from the sentimentality of Golden Age interiors, Holsoe and his contemporaries imbued this traditional genre with a sense of timeless sanctity. Through the depiction of solitary, usually female, figures with concealed identities, Holsoe's paintings evoke the brooding nature of introspection and self-absorption. His work, influenced by the 17th Century interiors of the Dutch masters Vermeer, de Hooch, and ter Borch, explored the emotional content inherent in the household interior