The exhibition “Reunion” offers a new look at the work of the Funen Painters with major works from Faaborg Museum and the National Gallery of Denmark in dialogue together as part of an investigation of their often neglected cultural history, namely that of everyday culture and the political aspects of the Funen Painters’ art.
The exhibition thus develops two major themes. Firstly ‘The Century of the Child’ examines how the modern understanding of ‘the child’, which emerged around the year 1900, is portrayed by the Funen Painters. They view the child’s life from the modern perspective of the child as individual. The Funen Painters understood childhood as a safe and happy time: they portray children in tune with the natural world, playing at the skating rink, in the sea or around town, and when they show a woman in the role of ‘mother’ or a young woman it as an epitome of the future. Their approach to a child’s life can be seen in the light of the political climate of the period and the understanding of the child as it was at that moment in time around the year 1900.
