Erik Henningsen (Danish painter) 1855 - 1930
Erik Henningsen was born in Copenhagen to Frants Ludvig Henningsen (1820–1869), a grocer, and Hilda Charlotte Christine née Schou (1824–1880). He showed an early artistic talent and was articled to decorative painter A. Hellesen. He also took drawing lessons privately with C. V. Nielsen and was admitted to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1873. He graduated in 1877 and won several awards and distinctions, including the Academy’s Annual Medal in 1887 and 1890, the Ancher Prize in 1889, and in 1892 a travel scholarship of DKK 100. Henningsen became part of the group Bogstaveligheden, a forum for the Realists’ humanitarian ideals about creating a better society through illumination and debate. In his paintings from the 1880s and 1890s, Henningsen was preoccupied with the rights and living conditions of groups such as the unemployed, women, workers, children and the elderly.
