TUXEN, Laurits Regner

Danish painter. He was instructed in the tradition of academic realism at the Kunstakademiet in Copenhagen between 1868 and 1872, but later studies in Paris, with Léon Bonnat, and Rome (1879-80) guided him towards naturalism. As professor (1880-1905) at the School of Artistic Studies, Copenhagen, founded to counteract the conversatism of the official Royal Academy of Fine Arts there, Tuxen was able to introduce naturalism to Danish students, making the way for 20th-century modernism.

Until the end of the century, Tuxen lived and worked a great deal in Paris, where he adopted a cosmopolitan style that set him apart from his Scandinavian contemporaries. His fame rested on his position as one of Europe’s leading court painters for over 30 years. He introduced relative freshness and modernity to such royal group portraits as Christian IX and his Family at Fredensborg Castle (1886; Copenhagen, Christiansborg Slot, Queen’s Reception Rooms) and the British equivalent, Queen Victoria and Family at Windsor Castle, Jubilee (1887; Windsor Castle, Royal Collection).

With his well-developed feeling for colour harmony and virtuoso manipulation of bright hues, he painted directly on to the canvas without preliminary drawing, although he did produce a number of remarkably free oil sketches, for example Queen Victoria (1894; Copenhagen, Hirschsprungske Samling) and a study for The Duke of York’s Wedding (1894; Windsor Castle, Royal Collection). His royal sitters are informally grouped as ordinary human beings and not the sublime divinities celebrated in royal portraits of the absolutist era.

There are twenty-seven paintings by Tuxen in the Royal Collection, Windsor. His work for the English court extended across the reigns of three monarchs: Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V.