GEORG NICOLAI ACHEN
(Danish 1860–1912)
SOLD WORKS
Georg Nicolai Achen (Aachen) was born in Frederikssund, Denmark in 1860. In 1871, his family moved to Copenhagen, possibly because his brother Eggert Achen, who became an architect, was attending school there, or so that Georg could begin his own studies. Georg began to study painting under the artist Vilhelm Kyhn at his Huleakademiet, before attending the Royal Danish Academy from 1877-1883. This was followed by training at the Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler under the well known Danish artist Peder Severin Krøyer.
A contemporary and friend of Vilhelm Hammershøi, the two artists had much of the same training and influence. By 1885 Achen was moving away from landscapes and adding more portraiture and interiors as his subjects, much like Hammershøi, and the two artists developed a similar style. In 1886 Achen traveled to Paris and was influenced by the works of the Impressionists, leading to a change in his painting style in which he used light and colour in a more Impressionistic manner. His interiors often had a subdued palette of pink, gray and brown. In 1889 he exhibited at the Paris Salon and in 1890 was awarded the Thorvaldsen medal for a portrait of his mother. This medal led to Achen becoming one of Denmark’s most sought-after portrait painters in the following years. Many of these commissioned portraits were executed in the fashionable taste of the time, but portraits of friends and family showed a more painterly aesthetic.
In 1897 Achen joined the Free Exhibition, an avant garde exhibition designed to show works which did not follow traditional approaches. However due to mental health issues leading to several periods of crisis and accompanying inactivity, his production was limited during his lifetime and he died in 1912 at only 51 years of age. Today sixty-five of his works can be found in Danish public museum collections.