Bjørn Nørgaard and the Reformation

From 21 February 2012

In 2001, Kunstmuseet Køge Skitsesamling (now KØS museum of art in public spaces) acquired the vast amounts of sketches and studies associated with HM Queen Margrethe II’s tapestries in the Great Hall at Christiansborg Palace.

The tapestries depict 1,000 years of Danish history, from Viking days to the rapid modernisation ushered in by the 20th century. Over the course of the tale told in the tapestries, you will meet figures from the Danish list of kings ranging from Gorm the Old to King Frederik IX and HM Queen Margrethe II.

The queen received the tapestries as a gift from the Danish business community on the occasion of her fiftieth birthday in 1990. Completing the gift proved a time-consuming labour, however, and not until the year 2000 were the 11 tapestries and six entrefenetres hung in the Great Hall at Christiansborg.

The exhibition, “Bjørn Nørgaard and Reformation”, shows KØS many never before seen sketches for Nørgaards tapestries on the Reformation. There is also the opportunity to hear a theologian, a historian and a kunsthistorikers view of the Reformation period and Bjorn Norgaard symbolic representation of the.

The artist behind the tapestry cartoons is the Danish artist and sculptor Bjørn Nørgaard (b. 1947), who has evinced a keen interest in historical subjects throughout his artistic career. The tapestries were woven at the French weaving workshop Manufactures Nationales des Gobelin et des Beauvais, and the project was so extensive that between 30 and 50 weavers worked on the assignment at all times during the 10-year process. The life-sized cartoons on display in this room constitute the final preliminary works in the long artistic process involved in the creation of the tapestries. Thus, they served as the pattern used by the craftsmen and -women in charge of weaving the tapestries themselves.