The Avant-Garde and the Art Market in Denmark

At the end of the nineteenth century, artists acknowledged, once and for all, that they were dependent on market mechanisms to distribute their work.This involved several parameters. how could the understanding of art be propagated? How would their art be received by the public? And last but not least, how could they make their work financially viable? To deal with these issues, artists needed allies who could promote their art through exhibitions and criticism, and auction houses and art dealers who could work on sales and other profitable initiatives. The main players in Denmark were the museums, but their acquisitions of work by contemporary young artists were virtually non-existent. the professional apparatus as we know it today simply did not exist.

Exhibitions, reviews, sales and other kinds of financial support were all closely connected, but it was difficult for the individual artist to deal with them all; the artist had to develop a self-image which could encompass two worlds, one concrete and one abstract. As no account of the relation between artists and the market in Denmark in this period has previously been presented, it is important to investigate the prevailing social and cultural conditions of the first decade of the twentieth century. Let us first consider how an artistic career emerged at this time by turning our attention to the academy of fine arts and its policies.