25 Facts About Vilhelm Kyhn

Peter Vilhelm Carl Kyhn was a Danish landscape painter who belonged to the generation of national romantic painters immediately after the Danish Golden Age and before the Modern Breakthrough.

Vilhelm Kyhn was born in Copenhagen to Carl Gottlieb Vilhelm Kyhn and his wife Sara Marie.

Vilhelm Kyhn's father was against his becoming an artist, and he was first put to train in a business office; then as a compromise he was allowed to train with copperplate engraver, Georg Hoffmann.

Vilhelm Kyhn got the opportunity to begin his training at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1836.

Vilhelm Kyhn won the small silver medallion in 1843 for a figure drawing, but he was set on becoming a landscape painter.

Vilhelm Kyhn became part of the movement and was able to exhibit his first landscape, Et bornholmsk Strandparti, an area he had visited over a period of several years.

In 1845, Vilhelm Kyhn won a prize in the Neuhausen Competition for Landskab, hvori Foraaret karakteriseres.

Vilhelm Kyhn traveled over the Netherlands and Belgium to Paris in the spring of 1850, and reached Italy in September of the same year.

Vilhelm Kyhn painted few landscapes of the countries he visited, and only during his travels abroad.

Vilhelm Kyhn helped open the way for other artists to interpret this quintessential Danish landscape.

Vilhelm Kyhn painted many landscapes in the area near Silkeborg, and spent his summers starting in 1873 at Himmelbjerg, one of Denmark's highest points.

Vilhelm Kyhn was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of The Danish Etchers Union in 1853.

Vilhelm Kyhn taught at both the School of Drawing and the School of Painting from the 1850s.

Vilhelm Kyhn became a member of the Art Academy in 1870.

Vilhelm Kyhn traveled to Sweden in 1866 and 1874, to Norway in 1873 and 1874, to Skagen in 1877.

In reaction and opposition to the growing internationalism affecting young Danish artists who were choosing to travel to France as part of their education, and to the effect of this French training on Danish art, Vilhelm Kyhn sent a work to Paris in 1876.

Vilhelm Kyhn traveled to Paris in 1878 where his work was exhibited at the World Exhibition.

Vilhelm Kyhn's work was exhibited at the first international art exhibition in Vienna, Austria in 1882.

Vilhelm Kyhn was selected as member of the Academy's plenary assembly in 1887.

Vilhelm Kyhn's son Svend Carl, born in 1862, was a promising landscape and interiors painter but died in 1890.

Vilhelm Kyhn received the bronze medallion at the Paris Exhibition of 1900.

Vilhelm Kyhn died in Frederiksberg on May 11,1903, at the age of 84.

Vilhelm Kyhn portrayed a more naturalistic landscape than previously, one that was anchored in careful study and with an immediacy made possible through open-air painting.

Vilhelm Kyhn chose to feature and glorify the landscapes of his native land, exploring especially the countryside near his home in Jutland.

Vilhelm Kyhn was influenced by the times, and could show that influence in his paintings, while the national romanticism of his middle years was still an anchor in his large production of landscapes.