Petersen, Emanuel A

Emanuel A. Petersen was a Danish Impressionist & Modern painter who was born in 1894.
His father was a clergyman and did not approve of his son’s creative efforts, but Emanuel managed to become an apprentice house painter. After he completed his apprenticeship, he got a job at Royal Copenhagen when he was trained by a marine artist. Royal Copenhagen sent him to the Mediterranean. After returning home, he was offered passage on a ship sailing for West Greenland in 1921.
Emanuel was enthralled by the nature and colours of Greenland and he produced many paintings. Four years later, he returned with his family and they lived for a year in Ilulissat. Here, his eye for the quite unique light in Greenland was sharpened and he took part in many dog sled trips which were all depicted in his paintings.

In all, Emanuel A. Petersen spent six years in Greenland, from 1921 until 1935, travelling to most of the inhabited places in Greenland. He had a great love of Greenlandic flora and fauna, nature, the people and the great hospitality he met everywhere. This is seen in many of the great landscapes he painted, where there are often people in the foreground.
His work was featured in an exhibition at the Nordatlantens Brygge. The artist died in 1948.