Exhibition catalogues

By Jane Feifer and Kristine Bøggild Johannsen
English Edition 2020
The portrait has an instinctive appeal. Who is the man behind the face, and who are we ourselves?
Where painted and photographic portraits can be immediately captivating and fascinating, sculptural portraits may seem harder to get close to. There is no background and only a few details to inform the viewer. The result is that one often only registers them in passing: as irrelevant, intangible and perhaps even boring. But it was not always so.
Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) was one of Europe's most popular portrait artists. During his lifetime, he completed around 180 sculptural portraits - from members of Europe's royal houses to leading cultural personalities and ordinary Danish citizens. Thorvaldsen's sculptural portraits thus make up the largest part of his life's work. At that time, sculptural portraits were common. The book relates to why they went out of fashion. Today we are bombarded with portraits on social media, but interest in the three-dimensional sculptural portrait has dropped drastically. What does this mean for our understanding of the portrait as a medium?

By William Gelius, Stig Miss et al. 
2004, 78 pp., ill. After a number of 
years as a half forgotten and disparaged 
material, white marble has now made its 
comeback in modern Danish art, where 
comprehensive and experimental use is 
being made of sculpture’s classic material. 

By Margrethe Floryan and Laila Skjøthaug 
German Edition 2011, 120 pp., ill. Catalogue
to accompany the exhibition of Thorvaldsen’s 
sketches in the Winckelmann Museum in 
Stendal during the period2 December 2011
 to 12 February 2012.

By William Gelius and Britta Timm Knudsen 
2006, 40 pp., ill. Thorvaldsen’s collection of 
paintings is on permanent display in the museum. 
The artist Søren Lose here created a photographic 
installation that set them all off against his own 
contemporary work. 

Ed.: William Gelius, Anne Hald and Stig Miss 
2016, 104 pp., ill. Catalogue for the exhibition
 The Sculptor Gottfred Eickhoff shown at 
Thorvaldsens Museum from February 12 
to June 5, 2016. 

By William Gelius 2011, 28 pp., ill. 
English summaries The exhibition 
featuring the internationally renowned 
duo Elmgreen & Dragset presents a 
refreshing angle on Thorvaldsen today. 

Text in Danish, Italian and English 2008, 
80 pp., ill. The Italian city of Ravenna is 
famous throughout the world for its incredible 
mosaics from the 5th and 6th centuries. Today, 
the mosaics are on the UNESCO list of the world’s 
most important cultural treasures. In the 1950s, 
Ravenna’s Academy of Fine Arts made copies of 
the artistically most valuable of the mosaics.

By Ole Nørlyng, Torben Melander, Stig Miss, 
Gertrud Hvidberg-Hansen, William Gelius, 
Charlotte Christensen and Kristine Bøggild 
Johannesen 2005, 216 pp., ill. Ballet, folk 
dance and open air dance events – dance as 
reproduced in Danish visual art and sculpture 
during the period 1750-1850. 

By Stig Miss, Ernst Jonas Bencard, 
Luisa Passeggia, Margrethe Floryan, 
Nana Bernhardt and Gitte Smed 2002, 
326 pp., ill. After Thorvaldsen, sculptors 
were brought almost to a state of paralysis 
by the influence of the great master. They 
found it enormously difficult to break with 
Thorvaldsen’s neo-classicism and to open
their studio doors just a little to modern 
developments.

2003, 21 pp., ill.
The photographer Trine Søndergaard has photographed the staff of the museum along with their individual favourites among Thorvaldsen works.

By Stig Miss, Gertrud With and Jan Drees
2000, 128 pp., ill.
Drawings by the visionary artists Carstens and Koch along with such of Thorvaldsen’s own drawings as can directly be related to their work.

By Stig Miss, Kasper Monrad, Steen Bo Frandsen, Helmut R. Leppien, Helmuth Börsch-Supan, William Gelius, Catherine Johnston, Nana Bernhardt and Pernille Damsted Olsen 
2000, 282 pp., ill. 
This catalogue adds a new facet to our knowledge of the Danish Golden Age.

By Nina Damsgaard, Dyveke Helsted, Eva Henschen and Bjarne Jørnæs 
1988, 220 pp., ill. 
This book provides a comprehensive account of Sonne’s extensive oeuvre, which culminated with the creation of the frieze on the museum façade. Among the works in Thorvaldsen’s collection of paintings there are also works by Sonne.

By William Gelius, Knut Ormhaug, Petra Kuhlmann-Hodick and Nana Bernhardt 
2003, 115 pp., ill. 
J.C. Dahl (1788-1857) was of great significance in landscape painting in Norway, Denmark and Germany. The focus here is on his Danish works.

By Martin Erik Andersen, William Gelius, Jacob Helbo Jensen and Stig Miss 
2009, 69 pp., ill. 
Astrid Noack is a loner in Danish art. Between 1925 and 1954, she created a series of unique and timeless sculptures, a selection of which was presented in Thorvaldsens Museum.