Marie Krøyer
Marie Triepcke Krøyer Alfvén (11 June 1867 – 25 May 1940) commonly known as Marie Krøyer, was a Danish painter. She is remembered principally as the wife of Peder Severin Krøyer, one of the most successful members of the artists' colony known as the Skagen Painters, which flourished at the end of the 19th century in the far north of Jutland. Marie was also a part of the small group of Danish painters in her own right. From an early age, Marie aspired to become an artist, and after training privately in Copenhagen she went to Paris to continue her studies. There she was educated in the principles of Naturalism, and was influenced greatly by the French Impressionists. It was there, in early 1889, that she met Krøyer, who immediately fell madly in love with her. Although he was sixteen years her senior, the couple married that summer and in 1891 settled in Skagen. Clearly inspired by Marie's beauty, Krøyer had ample opportunity to paint her portraits both indoors and outdoors, especially on the beach. Married life became more difficult as Krøyer experienced periods of mental illness from 1900, and Marie eventually began an affair with the Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén who had also been taken by her beauty. The couple had a child, Marie divorced Krøyer and moved to Sweden with Alfvén. They married in 1912, but marital problems once again resulted in divorce. Marie was reluctant to paint after meeting Krøyer, whom she looked up to as a far more competent artist, and she is remembered more as the subject of some of his best-known paintings than for her own work, although several of her pictures have recently attracted renewed interest. She is now also recognized for her significant contributions to design and architecture. Early life and education Born in Frederiksberg, Marie was the daughter of Max Triepcke, the technical director at the J. H. Rubens Loomery, and his wife Minna Augusta Kindler, who had emigrated to Denmark from Germany in 1866. She enjoyed a comfortable, middle-class life growing up in the Triepcke home, along with her two brothers Wilhelm and Valdemar. A childhood schoolfriend, Ida Hirschsprung, brought Marie into social contact with Heinrich and Pauline Hirschsprung, Ida's aunt and uncle. Heinrich Hirschsprung, a prominent businessman who ran a successful tobacco manufacturing business, was a patron of the arts and had shown an early interest in P. S. Krøyer. From an early age, Marie showed a great interest in art, aspiring to become a painter. It was very difficult in those days for women to train as artists, but she was talented and enjoyed the support of her parents. She studied privately under Carl Thomsen in the 1880s and was helped along the way by Bertha Wegmann, a leading portrait artist of the day, for whom she modeled at sixteen years of age. As there were no public schools for female artists, Marie had the idea of saving on the expense of private tuition by gathering a group