KunstenaarDanish
Kai Nielsen
3 actieve items
Kai Nielsen was born on 26 November 1882 in Svendborg, a harbour town on the southern coast of Funen. His father was a watchmaker, and Nielsen began working life as a painter's apprentice at fifteen, simultaneously studying at the local technical school where he was taught modelling by Edvard Eriksen, the sculptor later responsible for Copenhagen's Little Mermaid. That early encounter with three-dimensional form proved decisive. When Nielsen moved to Copenhagen in 1901 to apply to the Art Academy, the committee rejected his drawings but accepted him directly into the sculpture school on the strength of a portrait bust, placing him under Carl Aarsleff. There he began a lasting friendship with Einar Utzon-Frank and found himself drawn to the collection at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, particularly to Rodin and Meunier.
His breakthrough came with "Naked" in 1908, acquired by the Danish National Gallery. The rounded female body became the central subject of his mature work, not idealized after the antique but weighted with physical presence and warmth. The same year he was developing a socially conscious strand, exemplified by "The Blind Girl" (1907, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek). His first major public commission, the Ymir Well for a square in Faaborg (1913), drew controversy for its frank nudity but secured his standing as one of the most distinctive voices in Danish sculpture.
Between 1918 and 1920 Nielsen completed an ambitious decorative program for the park of Norwegian shipping magnate Anton Fredrik Klaveness at Lysaker outside Oslo. The centerpiece of that commission, "Vandmoderen" (The Water Mother), later entered the winter garden of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Alongside monumental work he produced a large body of smaller pieces, figurines and ornaments for Bing and Grondahl, Kahler, and Ipsen's Enke, which put his particular formal language into domestic settings across Scandinavia. He was married to the Norwegian painter Yanna Lange Kielland Holm and spent time in Norway, where he hiked and took physical exercise with characteristic intensity. Years of illness and repeated operations ended his life on 2 November 1924, at forty-one.
At auction Nielsen appears across a range of formats: large bronze and stone sculptures, smaller porcelain and terracotta figurines, and occasional drawings. The 75 recorded lots are spread across several Scandinavian houses, with Palsgaard accounting for 18 and Bruun Rasmussen Lyngby for 14. Categories split nearly evenly between Paintings, Sculptures, and Ceramics, reflecting the breadth of his output. The kneeling faun from the Paris Judgement series reached 36,000 DKK at the top of the recorded range, while "Susanna i badet" (1917, also from the Paris Judgement group) achieved 17,000 DKK and "Ved Toilettet" from 1918 sold for 15,500 DKK. Five lots remain active at time of writing, suggesting continued trade.