Mundt, Emilie (1842-1922)

Biography
 
Full name: Caroline Emilie Mundt.
Born on Aug. 22nd 1842 in Sorö, Denmark.
Initially she attended the Vilhelm Kyhn Drawing School and took lesson from Jörgen Roed.
In 1875 she applied for admission to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, but because of the rigid structure of that institution (no women were allowed there until 1888) she was refused admission. Instead, encouraged by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann, she went to Munich (accompanied by Marie Luplau) and studied there until 1876. Later, during 1882-84, she studied in Paris, among other at the Acad. Colorossi (Raphaël Collin and Gustave Courtois). Finally she made another study tour to Paris (1891) and to Italy and Switzerland (1912).
In recognition of her talent and work she received the Academy Travelling Awards in 1890-91 and 1895.
She debuted at the prestigious Charlottenborg Spring Exhibitions in 1878 and exhibited there continuously until 1923. Apart from exhibiting at other prominent national exhibitions she also exhibited at the World Exhibitions in Paris (1889).
Upon her return from her study tour to Munich, she and Marie Luplau founded a drawing and painting school for women, which had great impact on a large part of Danish female painters of that period. After her first tour to Paris, she got especially occupied by salon painting, highly influenced by Jules Breton and Jules Bastien Lepage, whose depictions of pour people’s circumstances inspired her to make a range of warm-hearted depictions of asylum children’s lives. These motifs made her known and popular and children became a characteristic in her paintings for life.
Apart from these motifs, she also made landscapes, with motifs from France, Denmark and Italy.
As mentioned she was refused admission to The Academy in 1875, but she worked actively (strongly supported by the hardcore feminist Marie Luplau) to make access for women, and their efforts contributed to the establishment of the Women’s Institute there in 1888.