Rita Kernn-Larsen, *Phantoms*, 1934, oil on canvas

Once described as “a female, Danish Picasso”, Danish Surrealist artist Rita Kernn-Larsen (1904-1998) was one of the few internationally recognised female Surrealists of her time. Yet, while her art is part of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum collection and despite important retrospective exhibitions in Italy and Denmark, her colourful, imaginative work is not widely known today.

Rita Kernn-Larsen, *Oasis*, 1945, oil on canvas

In her work, which spanned abstraction and surrealism, Kernn-Larsen explored themes of dreams, memories, experiences, and imagination, as well as the link between the female and nature’s fertility.

Her Surrealist period remained for her the most meaningful: “It truly was the best time for me as an artist”, she said in an interview in the 1960s.

Rita Kernn-Larsen, *And Life Anew…*, 1940, oil on canvas

Born to a wealthy family, Kernn-Larsen studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts but finding its teaching methods too restrictive she relocated to Paris to study under Fernand Léger, becoming one of his most prominent students.

Rita Kernn-Larsen, *The Two Young Ladies*, 1939

Upon returning to Denmark In 1934, Kernn-Larsen opened her own studio and joining the Danish Surrealist group, with whom she exhibited in Denmark and Paris. It was during one of the Paris exhibitions that she met her future husband, the Jewish journalist and art dealer, Isak Grünberg.

Rita Kernn-Larsen, *Self Portrait, Know Thyself*

Paris was also the city where she met Peggy Guggenheim, who curated a large-scale solo exhibition for her at the Guggenheim Jeune Gallery in London in 1938. Critically acclaimed, it was the first Surrealist exhibition organised by Peggy Guggenheim, and the start of many more to come. At the opening, Kernn-Larsen wore a hat decorated with small bells and oat flakes that flew off in clouds with each step.

Rite Kernn-Larsen, *Dance and Counter Dance*, 1936, oil on canvas

The onset of World War II caught Kernn-Larsen and her husband in London, where they spent the rest of the war and had a daughter. After the war, the family moved to the south of France. This is where Kernn-Larsen lived the rest of her long life, incorporating the landscape as a motif for her later paintings. There, she also illustrated for magazines, worked with ceramics and collage, and published a children's book, The Golden Village.

The last exhibition during her lifetime, a retrospective at the Randers Art Museum in Denmark, was in 1995. Kernn-Larsen’s work can be seen at the Guggenheim Museum in Venice.

Back to Surrealism