The National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) is a research institution under the Ministry of Culture and Denmark’s leading museum for the visual arts. SMK is managed in accordance with the museum act and has, through collection, registration, conservation, research and dissemination, as its obligation to shed light on Danish and international visual arts, primarily from Western culture after the year 1300. The museum must visualise the collections and put them into perspective by participation in international collaboration and, insofar as Danish art is concerned, representative collections must be upheld.

SMK has as national gallery and main museum a special research obligation. SMK performs broadly-based research into both Danish and international art, just as research and development are inextricably linked to conservation, dissemination, communication, museology and digital museum practices. The research is crucial to SMK’s ability to extend the museum’s collection, to make it topical and relevant for the museum’s users and society in general. The museum’s research is based on its collections and their dissemination. The collection consists of more than 9,000 paintings and sculptures, approx. 240,000 artworks on paper and more than 3,500 plaster casts.

Research at SMK has the art and the meeting with art as its focal point and the public as its recipient. SMK’s research must therefore not only clarify historical perspectives, which let us understand the past, but also the contemporary contextualisations that make art relevant in the present day and relevant to today’s museum user. The landmarks for research at SMK are quality, relevance, and diversity.