page_title: Skagen Painters
section_title: Carl Locher
hierarchical_section_title: Skagen Painters / Members of the group / Carl Locher
context_page_description: The Skagen Painters were a group of Scandinavian artists who gathered in the village of Skagen, the northernmost part of Denmark, from the late 1870s until the turn of the century. Skagen was a summer destination whose scenic nature, local milieu and social community attracted northern artists to paint en plein air, emulating the French Impressionists—though members of the Skagen colony were also influenced by Realist movements such as the Barbizon school. They broke away from the rather rigid traditions of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, espousing the latest trends that they had learned in Paris. Among the group were Anna and Michael Ancher, Peder Severin Krøyer, Holger Drachmann, Karl Madsen, Laurits Tuxen, Marie Krøyer, Carl Locher, Viggo Johansen and Thorvald Niss from Denmark, Oscar Björck and Johan Krouthén from Sweden, and Christian Krohg and Eilif Peterssen from Norway. The group gathered together regularly at the Brøndums Inn.
  Skagen, in the very north of Jutland, was the largest fishing community in Denmark, with more than half of its population so engaged.
context_section_description: Somewhat forgotten today, Carl Locher (1851–1915) was one of the earlier visitors to Skagen. Holgen Drachmann, who had taught him before he attended the Royal Academy, persuaded him to go there in 1872. Especially interested in marine painting, Locher adopted a realist impressionistic approach, influenced by the time he spent with Léon Bonnat in Paris during the 1870s. A stickler for perfection, especially in his drawings, his works cover the transition from sailing ships to steamships and from the original Skagen to the evolving tourist destination. His paintings include Fishing Cutters in the Moonlit Night, 1888, The Lightship at Skagen Reef (1892)  and above all The Mail Coach (c. 1890) which depicts the horse-drawn carriage which until the railway reached Skagen in 1890 was the way travellers arrived there from Frederikshavn. In 1910, Locher built a house overlooking the beach at Skagen Østerby where he painted until he died of heart trouble in 1913.
caption: P.S. Krøyer: Carl Locher (1885)
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