Dimensions: 97.7 cm (height) x 79 cm (width) (Netto), 115.7 cm (height) x 96.9 cm (width) x 8.3 cm (depth) (Brutto)
Astrid Holm made Rose Laying the Table with oil paint, and the way she handles the paint feels so natural. She’s not trying to hide her process. You can see every stroke, every decision. I love the pinks and mauves in this piece. It’s not a straightforward color palette, and I appreciate that ambiguity. Look at the pineapple. See how the greens and blues interact with the warmer oranges and reds? Holm’s willing to let the colors vibrate against each other, creating a sense of movement and energy. The paint isn’t overworked, but it is considered. It makes me think of Bonnard, in a way. Not in terms of subject matter, necessarily, but in terms of a willingness to let the painting live in a state of flux. It’s like she’s saying, "Here’s what I see, but I’m not going to force it into a neat little package." It’s more like an invitation to participate in the act of seeing.
Comments
statensmuseumforkunst over 1 year ago
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Rose fits in well in the rest of the colours that shape this painting with gentleness, abundance, and careful thought, evoking a plethora of delicate objects, flowers, and exotic fruits in bowls. Astrid Holm painted a portrait of a woman engaged in her work, but Rose is not just any woman. She is a descendant of the slaves of Saint Thomas, one of the West Indian islands that Denmark owned up until 1917. Now she works as a maid in a wealthy Danish household on the island. Astrid Holm began her artistic training at the private school of drawing operated by the artist couple Emilie Mundt and Marie Luplau, and she later became a pupil at Henri Matisse's school of painting. Here the female artist - possibly propelled by a sense of sympathy for Rose – has painted a highly rare motif in a manner that was, for its day, very modern and Matisse-like, and which was first introduced in Denmark with this painting.
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statensmuseumforkunst over 1 year ago
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The painting was created on a journey to the West Indies, which were still a Danish colony in 1914. In Holm’s painting the black woman is put on a par with exotic flowers and fruits as a proponent of an exotic otherness that fascinated several avant-garde artists of the day such as Jais Nielsen, and, in France, Picasso, and Matisse. Astrid Holm is among the few female artists to make a mark for herself within the Danish art scene of 1900-20. She lived in Paris in 1910-14, exhibited her work at the progressive salons, and moved among the Scandinavian art set and the French avant-garde. Among the Danish artists of her generation she was closely linked to Jais Nielsen, exhibiting with him in 1915. Being a woman, Holm was barred from the most powerful associations of the era, and around 1920 she abandoned her career as a painter.
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