Bertha Wegmann: Dandelions

Bertha Wegmann (1847-1926) was a Danish portrait painter of German ancestry, and was the first woman to hold a chair at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. She is considered one of the most significant painters of the Danish Realism movement and was among a small number of women artists of the period to be recognized and respected for her work in her own day. 

In 1881 Wegmann moved to Munich and studied with the historical painter Wilhelm von Lindenschmit the Younger, and later with the genre painter Eduard Kurzbauer, but she was not satisfied with learning in a studio atmosphere and decided to study directly from nature. She longed to paint what she wanted, and found escape in landscapes and wildflowers, subjects through which she could explore the true female experience without criticism.

She particularly liked painting dandelions, because she saw them as tenacious and strong-willed, they represented the female spirit. The dandelion was used to promote the women’s liberation movement in Scandinavia because of its capacity for uncontrolled, strong-willed growth. Wildflowers became a metaphor for her own existence, too: untamed and independent. She did not conform to stereotypes, and her personal life never interrupted her art.

the above text appears on the back of the card
HC-1524: card size 7" x 5" (178mm x 127mm)