Viggo FAUERHOLDT

Copenhagen 1832 - Düsseldorf 1883

Biography

The son of a merchant, the marine painter Viggo Fauerholdt studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (the Kunstakadamiet) in Copenhagen between 1846 and 1852. He exhibited regularly at the Kunstakadamiet between 1854 and 1867, showing a total of forty-two works, and in 1857 won the Neuhausen Prize. Fauerholdt travelled widely throughout Denmark, painting in and around Copenhagen and also at Helsingør, Sønderbog, Rudkøbing, Svendborg and on the island of Fanø. Many of his exhibited works from 1856 onwards were views of the rugged coastline of the Danish island of Bornholm, situated in the Baltic Sea well to the east of the rest of Denmark, and midway between the south coast of Sweden and the northern coasts of Germany and Poland. Inspired by the contemporary Germanic tradition of picturesque landscape painting, Fauerholdt was one of the first Danish artists to paint the dramatic coastline of Bornholm, and must have lived on the island for several years. In 1862 one of his views of Bornholm was acquired by King Frederik VII of Denmark. Three years later, in 1865, Fauerholdt left Denmark and settled in Düsseldorf, where he lived and worked until his death. For the remainder of his career he painted coastal and shipping scenes and seascapes, mainly in Germany and Holland.