Danish Painter Olga Meisner-Jensen [1877-1949] – a Biography

Source: Dansk kvindebiografisk leksikon, biography by Lisbet A. Lund. Translation by Feminine Moments. The copyright of the text below remains with the original holder. It is used here for the purpose of education, comparison and criticism only.

Olga Meisner-Jensen. Still life with bells Campanula in pots on a sunny windowsill, unclear dating

Olga Meisner-Jensen

Olga Vilhelmine Meisner-Jensen
Born 12 February 1877, Frederiksberg
Died 20 May 1949, Copenhagen
Profession: Painter
Name changed to Meisner-Jensen in 1908
Family – Parents: Master carpenter Hans Jensen (1840-80) and Clara Ernestine Meisner (1850-1924).
Roommate* ca. 1924-39: Photographer Mary Dorthea Frederikke Steen, born 28 October 1856 in Hvilsager parish, died 7 April 1939 in Copenhagen, daughter of teacher, church singer Niels Jensen S. and Caroline Kirstine Petersen.

Olga Meisner-Jensen [1877-1949] received her first classes in drawing and painting at Emilie Mundt and Marie Luplau’s private art school for women. This school had been opened in 1886 so that young women could learn the basic disciplines of drawing and painting in a reassuring manner. After 1888, the school gained even greater importance, as the Academy of Fine Arts opened its doors to female artists with the Academy of Fine Arts’ Art School for Women. In 1898, Olga Meisner-Jensen was admitted to the academy’s painting class, where Viggo Johansen taught, and she followed the classes until 1903. Later, she participated in a winter course with the painter Fritz Syberg, which she herself believed had meant a lot to her artistic expression.

Olga Meisner-Jensen made her debut at the Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling (Artists’ Autumn Exhibition) in 1907, [in Copenhagen]. She had several exhibitions there and at Charlottenborgs Forårsudstilling (the Charlottenborg’s Spring Exhibition) from 1908. A travel grant from the academy in 1909 made it possible for her to make a study trip to Paris the following year. Here she briefly visited L.J. Simon and E.R. Ménard’s painting school and studied the museums and modern art exhibitions. It was especially the impressionist painters and Cézanne who influenced her paintings. She later visited Paris several times, and in 1920 she traveled to Italy, where the bright daylight came to have a significant impact on her perception of the light in the painting.

In 1917, Olga Meisner-Jensen received the Academy’s annual medal for the painting ‘A Bouquet of Flowers’. In addition to the Academy’s censored exhibitions, she participated in Landsudstillingen (the National Exhibition) in Aarhus in 1909, Modern Danish Artists in Brighton, England in 1912, the Women’s Retrospective Exhibition in 1920 and the Danish National Exhibition in Brooklyn, USA in 1927. In 1912, she exhibited together with the female Funen painters Alhed Larsen, Cathrine Svendsen, Christine Swane and Anna Syberg in the Free Exhibition Building. Olga Meisner-Jensen’s paintings show a clear affinity with the Funen painters. Like them, especially the female painters, she preferred to paint flower pictures and portraits, although she also painted some landscapes. The influence of the Funen painters is also seen in her use of strong colors and often sunny lighting. The portrait paintings characterize the models well and are often in a light-saturated impressionistic style.

Together with her sister-in-law and friend, the painter Karen Meisner-Jensen, Olga Meisner-Jensen was professionally active in the fight to improve the conditions for female artists. In 1916, they were among the 25 women who founded the Kvindelige Kunstneres Samfund (the Society of Female Artists). The women wanted to be able to elect female artists to the Academy Council and Charlottenborg’s censorship committee. Olga Meisner-Jensen was a member of the censorship committee 1916-17 and 1921 and a member of the Academy Council 1922-25. Privately, from 1924 she lived with the first female court photographer, Mary Steen.

Olga Meisner-Jensen. Window sill with geraniums. Dating unclear.

Olga Meisner-Jensen. Still life with flowers in a window sill. Oil on canvas.

*) Footnote by Feminine Moments:
In 1924, Olga met painter Mary Dorothea Frederica Steen (1856-1939), Danish photographer and feminist, and they entered into a loving relationship that lasted until Mary died in 1939. The couple had a large circle of friends and a summer villa in Rungsted on the coast north of Copenhagen.