Edvard Weie

Having completed his training as a house painter, Edvard Weie submitted several applications to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts but was rejected. In 1905–1907 he attended The Artists’ Independent Study Schools, where he was taught by the painter Kristian Zahrtmann (1843-1917) who greatly influenced Weie’s early development.

At the outset of his artistic endeavours, Weie worked naturalistically, but this quickly gave way to a modernist approach where the colour and its scope for expression became the focal point. Weie often took his subject matter from mythological and literary sources while also working with figure compositions springing entirely from his own imagination. In addition, he found inspiration in the great painters of international art history.

Today, Weie is regarded as one of the greatest, most talented and most important colourists in Danish modernism. He had a crucial impact on later painters, especially because of his innovative use of colour and thorough study of nature.