Julius Paulsen

'Breton Woman', Paris Salon, Royal Danish Academy, Impressionist oil, Brittany

1919

Julius Paulsen was a Danish painter born in 1860. A dramatic, early 20th-century work by this notable Post-Impressionist painter and theorist of Modernism. Julius Paulsen first studied at Denmark's Royal Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1882. The recipient of numerous scholarships, including the 1883 Hielmstierne-Rosencrone Prize, Paulsen traveled and painted extensively throughout Europe. In 1885, he visited the Netherlands, France and Belgium where he sought out and studied the works of Rembrandt. In 1888, his travels took him to Italy and, in 1912, to Spain. Trips in 1909 and 1922 brought Paulsen back to Paris, where he was first exposed to the contemporary ferment of Modernist art ideas. These led him to both lighten his palette and to seek more subjective and emotional forms of expression. Throughout a long and distinguished career, Paulsen exhibited widely and with success, including at the Paris Salons in 1885 and 1925; at Chicago in 1893; Germany in 1891 and 1909 and London in 1907. He exhibited at the Paris World Expositions of 1889 and 1900, and, also, regularly and for many years at the Charlottenburg Palace. Paulsen's work bears the influence of Realism, Symbolism and Impressionism but he was also inspired by Dutch 17th-century art as can be seen in his 1902 painting, Portrait Group, in the Skagens Museum. He was associated with several of the Skagen Painters who gathered each summer in the north of Jutland, but he did not visit Skagen itself until after 1900. While there, he painted several portraits of his friend, the artist Laurits Tuxen and his family as well as several semi-abstract landscapes. In 1908, Paulsen was appointed professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and served continuously in this position until 1921. Paulsen died in 1940. His works can be found in the public collections of Denmark's state museums, including the Aarhus Art Museum, the Gothenburg Museum of Art, the State Museum for Art, Randers Museum of Art, Skagens Museum and his portrait of P.S. Kroyer still hangs in the Museum of National History in Frederiksborg Palace. Paulsen is well-listed in all art-reference works, including Benezit and Thieme-Becker.