Human Comes First – The Astrid Noack Study Collection
Special exhibition
For 70 years, the Astrid Noack Foundation has managed the legacy of Danish sculptor Astrid Noack (1888-1954). A task that the foundation will be handing over to Holstebro Kunstmuseum in 2024 in the form of Astrid Noack's study collection. To celebrate this event, we present the collection in its entirety for the first time with the special exhibition Human Comes First - Astrid Noack's Study Collection from 16.11.2024 – 04.05.2025.
In addition to the artist's book collection, a letter archive, workshop books, catalogues and a photo archive, Astrid Noack's Study Collection consists of 88 sculptures, 4 molds and 103 drawings, which are now being registered and preserved for posterity as part of Holstebro Kunstmuseum's collection.
Between tradition and modernity
Astrid Noack was born in Ribe and trained as a carver at Vallekilde in 1910. In 1935 she became the first woman to join the artists' association Grønningen, and she was a pioneer again in 2006, posthumously, as the only woman artist in the Danish Cultural Canon.
The subject of Astrid Noack's work is the human being. Often seen in its most characteristic position; the frontal. The subtle turn of the body, the imperfect asymmetry in ears, eyes and shoulders, as well as the slightly shifted positions of the hands or feet, create a sense of tension within the figures. Noack's artistic tools are so understated, so minimal, that the sculptures appear straightforward, dignified and powerful. As abstract tales about man's fragile monumentality and the human condition expressed through classical figuration. Astrid Noack's great contribution to the history of Danish sculpture is thus positioned between tradition and the modern.
Astrid Noack and the study collection
The artistic processes are the main focus of the exhibition. With Noack, the boundaries between finished works and drafts are delicate, and her thoroughness and elaboration of each individual sculpture is a characteristic. The many sketches and preliminary works in the studio collection therefore bear witness to an artist's tireless work with the material: Again and again, the human body is processed in plaster, bronze, cement and stone. The bodies are rendered in changing scales and always with the quiet and humane dignity which characterize her work.
Noack would spend many years on a sculpture working to find its perfect expression. Her works have an understated immediacy about them, which on closer inspection turns out to bear complex relationships of tension and proportion. Volume and space are the basic ingredients of every sculptor, and with Astrid Noack this cis emphasized by the often radical and uncompromising choices she makes: There are no colors, apart from the materials themselves, and no mannered poses - only the human being in atmospheric space. Noack preferred to work from and with living models, as evidenced by the exhibition's 103 drawings, and in her plastic work she seems to translate this human presence into universal statements.
Preservation and dissemination
Human Comes First - The Astrid Noack Study Collection rests on an extensive conservation program, which has made it possible to exhibit many of the works for the first time - the original plaster cast for Noack's famous statue of Anna Ancher (1939), for example, and a total of three different draft versions in plaster for Young Man Planting a Tree (1943-52). None of the drawings have previously been exhibited.
The exhibition is designed by architect Johan Carlsson, JAC Studios.
Film about the conservation work
Conservator Therese Gry Asla from The Danish Art Conservation Center, who specializes in sculpture, has been working on preserving and stabilizing many of the sculptures in the study collection since the autumn 2023. As such, she has gained special insights and knowledge of Astrid Noack's techniques and processes which is made accessible in the exhibition through a documentary film.
243 works by Noack in one book
Accompanying the exhibition, and to mark the addition of the 191 work in the study collection to the 52 works by the artist already owned by Holstebro Kunstmuseum, the museum is publishing a fully illustrated book of all 243 works by Astrid Noack now in the collection. The book is made in collaboration with graphic designers from Spine Studio, and the new photos of the entire collection are by photographer Lars Bay.
In addition to the works, the book contains a biography and three texts that contextualize Noack's works and practice in various ways. The contributors are; visual artist and former professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Martin Erik Andersen, who writes about Noack's special use of plinth geometries; art historian and expert in monuments, Mette Haakonsen, who sheds new light on Noack's Anna Ancher statue; and sculptor and retired professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Hein Heinsen, who takes his readers through the wide range of Noack’s artistic vocabulary.
Noack and Holstebro
Astrid Noack has been a central figure in Holstebro Kunstmuseum's collection since the museum opened in 1967. The first director, art historian and writer Poul Vad, diligently collected her works, which he believed constituted a main branch in the history of modern Danish sculpture. Noack's artistic focus on the human body has since then been an important reference in the museum's collection.
Poul Vad believed that the collection in Holstebro should show "examples of the best of all aspects of Danish art of the period in question". He selected five main artists, i.e. the core of the collection: Astrid Noack (1888-1954), Lauritz Hartz (1903-1987), Henry Heerup (1907-1993), Ejler Bille (1910-2004) and Erik Thommesen (1916- 2008). Noack, like the painter Hartz, was figurative. According to Vad, she had created a strong, personal art founded upon tradition, and she discovered her own way within modern sculpture; an artistic track that deviated from the avant-garde which had entered Danish art in the mid-1930s with Ejler Bille among the pioneers.
For this reason, many citizens in Holstebro have become familiar with Astrid Noack over the years, because the artist's works can be found in several places throughout the city: Noack's portrait of her colleague Anna Ancher (1939) stands on the forecourt of the museum, and if you move further away, you will find both the radical work Kneeling Boy (1942) and the slender sculpture Woman with Cloth (1944).
The Astrid Noack's Foundation
The Astrid Noack Scholarship Foundation was founded by the artist's family in 1955, the year after the artist's death, with the aim of managing the legacy of Noack. This has involved the ownership of the study collection, which is now being transferred to the museum, but it also involves administrating the Astrid Noack Scholarship.
The honorary grant is awarded to young, Danish sculptors, and thus works to support the development of the Danish sculpture tradition. The Astrid Noack Foundation has been awarding the grant since 1956. The first recipient was the sculptor and close friend of Astrid Noack, Erik Thommesen (1916-2008). In 1983, the scholarship was awarded at the Holstebro Kunstmuseum for the first time, and from 1985 the scholarship recipients have also had the opportunity to present works or exhibit at the museum.
The board of Astrid Noack's Foundation consists of chairman Janus Noack and visual artists Ellen Hyllemose, Anders Bonnesen and René Schmidt.
Human Comes First – The Astrid Noack Study Collection is supported by
The many sketches and preliminary works in the studio collection therefore bear witness to an artist's tireless work with the material: Again and again, the human body is processed in plaster, bronze, cement and stone. The bodies are rendered in changing scales and always with the quiet and humane dignity which characterize her work.
