page_title: Anna Ancher
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Anna Ancher / Background
caption_attribution_description: Anna Ancher (1859–1935), danish painter: self-portrait, c. 1877–78
context_page_description: Anna Ancher was a Danish artist associated with the Skagen Painters, an artist colony on the northern point of Jutland, Denmark. She is considered to be one of Denmark's greatest visual artists.
context_section_description: Anna Kirstine Brøndum was born in Skagen, Denmark, the daughter of Ane Hedvig Møller (1826–1916) and Erik Andersen Brøndum (1820–1890). She was the only one of the Skagen Painters who was born and grew up in Skagen, where her father owned the Brøndums Hotel. The artistic talent of Anna Ancher became obvious at an early age and she became acquainted with pictorial art via the many artists who settled to paint in Skagen, in the north of Jutland.
  While she studied drawing for three years at the Vilhelm Kyhn College of Painting in Copenhagen, she developed her own style and was a pioneer in observing the interplay of different colors in natural light. She also studied drawing in Paris at the atelier of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes along with Marie Triepcke, who would marry Peder Severin Krøyer, another Skagen painter. 
  In 1880 she married fellow painter Michael Ancher, whom she met in Skagen. They had one child, daughter Helga Ancher. Despite pressure from society that married women should devote themselves to household duties, she continued painting after marriage.
caption: Anna Ancher, self-portrait, ca. 1877–78
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