VICTOR ISBRAND

(Danish, 1897-1989)

STILL LIFE WITH A JAPANESE PRINT

Oil on Canvas

19¼ x 25¾ Inches

Signed Lower Right, "V. Isbrand"

 

A dramatic, Post-Impressionist still-life showing a group of items including a fluted, Japanese porcelain vase holding an informal arrangement of variegated daisies, a lobed Imari bowl with fruit and a Japanese woodblock print set on a draped table, all contrasted against a scumbled, lilac background; a stunning tour-de-force expressed with the refined palette and painterly brushwork of this notable member of the Danish Royal Academy.

 

Precocious as a child, Victor Isbrand painted professionally from a young age and was invited to exhibit at the 1915 Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition, two years before he graduated from the Copenhagen Academy of Fine Arts. Over the course of a long career, Isbrand was the recipient of national scholarships and stipends including the Ronge (1917), the Charlottenborg Art Academy (1919-1920) and the State Art Foundation Scholarship (1978-1988). He exhibited widely and with success including, for over seventy years, at both the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Kunsthalle Charlottenborg. He was also the recipient of numerous medals, prizes and juried awards including the Charlottenborg gold medal for 'Aphrodite and Eros' (1919).

 

Initially influenced by Cubism, Isbrand developed his mature style during a prolonged period spent painting in Java, where he explored the roots of both Primitivism and Orientalism. He also painted in Siam, Malacca, China, Japan, Paris, Greenland and Southern Europe before returning to Denmark to accept a teaching post at Copenhagen's School of Applied Arts. Here, his elegant articulation of Modernist art theory came to influence an entire generation of Danish painters. Victor Isbrand's works are held in private and public collections worldwide including the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg, Denmark.

 

Reference:

Thieme-Becker Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zu Gengenwart, Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1992, Vol. 19, p. 243; E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Jacques Busse, 1999 Nouvelle Édition, Gründ 1911, Vol. 7, p. 372; Weilbach, Dansk Kunstnerleksikon; et al.