A visit to Louisiana: Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk

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Free for the day of all three of our grandchildren on Wednesday - Sienna and Evie at school and Isabella at kindy - Katherine drove Kev and I to the town of Humlebæk which is about 35 kms from Copenhagen where the Museum of Modern Àrt called Louisiana is situated. Kev and I did visit it a couple of years ago while staying at Vallensbæk when we did a house swap with Aida and Adis; the same Aida and Adis who came to have lunch with us last Sunday.

Louisiana is located on the shores of Øresund Sound with direct views to Sweden. The original villa was named Louisiana after the three wives of the first owner of the property who wives were all called Louise apparently. It was then purchased by Knud W Jensen in the mid 50s and he commissioned architects to build a museum based on the old villa. The result is a perfect balance between art, architecture and landscape; the whole area is very picturesque. There are some really impressive sculptures in the garden and it would be easy to spend a whole day there if time permitted you to do so.

But since we had to be back around 2.30pm to pick up the girls we were on a somewhat rushed timetable. Nevertheless, under the circumstances I think we did very well. There is an impressive permanent collection of over 3,000 works which includes the works of many international artists including Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Max Ernst (1891-1976), Andy Warhol (1928-1987) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Sculptures include those of Henry Moore (1898-1986), Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and Joan Miró (1893-1983) whose work I love. The museum also has 8-12 special exhibitions each year.

We managed a whistle stop tour of some of the original collection; an exhibition by the Danish artist Poul Gernes (1925-1996); an exhibition called Illumination which is a display of art acquired over the past three years and Classics in the Louisiana Collection. The only one we missed was Picasso before Picasso which was from his very early works before he became famous.

And, last but not least, we managed to spend time eating in the café with view over to Sweden and also over some interesting sculptures which the garden is full of. The food there was scrum-diddly-umptious too. But the fact that we couldn't spend too much time there meant that we had to give the museum shop a miss which, no doubt, Kev thought was a bonus!

Back in Copenhagen to pick up the girls we discovered that they'd all had great days which we were pleased to hear. We certainly had!

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Photos

Entrance to Louisiana
'Big Rosa' which is Poul Gernes last work

Katherine and Kev
With another sculpture at the entrance to Louisiana

Knud W Jensen
Founder of the museum

Sculptures in front of the café
The weather has been sunny one minute, then cloudy the next

One of the three areas for the kids
Where Sienna, Evie and Isabella played when they went to Louisiana

Comments

[charlotte Cook]

Sculpture
Don't remember seeing that sculpture of 'Big Rosa' is it a new exhibit? Enjoy your last day in Denmark.

[michelleandkev]

Big Rosa
I think that was there because there was a Poul Gernes exhibition and Big Rosa was his last piece before he died.