Art in the Park

In 1951, the painter Oluf Høst wondered: “Bornholm is so full of beautiful granite and hardworking stonecutters, but there is not a single sculptor.” He would undoubtedly have approved of the small sculpture garden that has gradually grown up in front of the museum in his home town.

In Høst’s own time, which provided the background for the establishment of the museum, Gudhjem was a centre of Danish painting, just as “the Skagen Painters” and “the Funen Painters” had been previously. Dedicated sculptors, however, were rare.

Inside the museum, there are nevertheless a couple of smaller works by Astrid Noack (1888–1954), who worked in the town periodically.
The first sculptures were placed on long-term loan in 1990 by the sculptors Ole Christensen (granite), Inge Lise Westmann (cast iron) and Jun-Ichi Inoue (granite), in connection with the opening of the island’s first dedicated art exhibition hall.

In 1993, the Ny Carlsberg Foundation donated the sculptures to the museum and followed this in 2001 with a series of granite stelae by Ole Christensen in front of the new storage building.

Another granite sculpture was donated by the artist’s widow, Karin Christensen, while Julie Høm’s ceramic sculpture was added in 2008 with funding from Brdr. Larsens Fond, Sparekassen Bornholms Fond and Bornholm Regional Municipality.

The most recent additions to the collection are seven sculptures by Jun-Ichi Inoue. One had been owned by the museum for many years, while the remaining six were placed on long-term loan by the artist’s widow in 2017.

With funding from Sparekassen Bornholms Fond, Brdr. Larsens Fond, Bornholms Brand and 15. juni Fonden, the museum has since acquired five of these works.

As part of the acquisition of the last works by Jun-Ichi Inoue, a number of sculptures were moved into the large area in front of the museum. The vision of creating a meeting place for people, art, nature and history is thus becoming a reality.

With their prominent location, where people encounter the artworks in their everyday lives, the sculpture garden beautifully fulfils one of Ole Christensen’s central ambitions as an artist:
“If people are on their way home from work – if there is something that says something to them – then perhaps the day becomes a little easier and a little nicer to get through.”

The Artists

Ole Christensen (1932–2000)
is represented by “Trio”, “Møde” and “Fire vækster”. From the beginning of the 1950s until his death, he created around 75 public artworks throughout Denmark and 25 sculptures for art museums.

His powerful, nature-inspired works earned him the nickname “the Bornholm Granite King” in the Danish national press.

The concept of “love of life” was an essential driving force in his work. Almost his entire artistic universe grew out of a small number of fundamental fertility symbols – much like the visual language of primitive cultures, in which the holistic understanding of existence has not yet been lost.

Together with the ceramic artist Karin Høj Christensen, he lived and worked throughout his life just outside Olsker, in the midst of the nature of northern Bornholm.

His importance to Gudhjem Museum can hardly be overstated. He was the driving force behind the museum’s expansion in 1990, which put the museum on the Danish art map. For more than a decade, he also organised exhibitions together with Inge Lise Westman.

Inge Lise Westman (1945–2024)
is represented by the sculpture “Klo”. She trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and from 1971 lived and worked in the open countryside above Melsted.

She developed into a highly acclaimed interpreter of the surrounding landscape, often working on very large canvases.

Over the years, her paintings developed into vital transformations of the respectful sense of belonging to the incomprehensible and universal that people can experience in an intense encounter with nature.
Nature is also the starting point for her sculptures. But the naturalistic elements are purified, simplified and refined, so that the expression is not a representation of the individual and tangible, but rather the very essence of the character of form.

She exhibited in many countries and is represented in numerous museums and collections. She received many honours, including the Eckersberg Medal and the lifelong honorary grant from the Danish Arts Foundation.

Jun-Ichi Inoue (1948–2009)
is represented by “Top”, “Brønd”, “The Ancient”, “Go Through”, “Skald”, “Transformation” and “Hexagon”.

He came to Denmark in 1973 to attend the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, having previously studied at Musashino Art University in Tokyo.

Encouraged by his then father-in-law, Ole Christensen, he settled in an old stonecutting workshop between Olsker and Rutsker in 1987 and remained there until his death. The workshop provided ample space for his large-scale sculptures, which eventually found their way to more than a dozen squares and public spaces in Denmark and Sweden.

Although his encounter with Europe left clear traces in his art, he remained continually inspired by Japanese nature, garden art and the ritual stone traditions of his homeland.

This combination can, for example, be sensed in the large “Soltidens Hus” on Store Torv in Rønne. In 1998, he was honoured with the prestigious Astrid Noack Prize.

Julie Høm (1944– )
is represented by “Aaboen”. She was born and raised in Gudhjem and, following her training at the School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen, has had her own workshop in Holkadalen since 1968.

Her abstractions of nature based on everyday experiences – ranging from small to monumental formats – have resulted in extensive exhibition activity, numerous honours and significant representation in museums both in Denmark and abroad.

In recent years, she has mainly worked on larger commissions, including the sculptures “Vildgåsen” at Bispebjerg Park Allé in Copenhagen and “Klyden” at Klydens Plads in Ishøj, as well as public outdoor wall reliefs.

Over the years, she has also created artistic designs for a number of organs, including those in Jesus Church in Copenhagen and the cathedrals of Helsingør and Lund in Scania.

From 2001 to 2015, Julie Høm organised the museum’s extensive exhibition programme together with art historian Mogens Lau. In 2001, she was also one of the initiators of the Bornholm exhibition association Holkahesten.

Text: Peter Tiemroth