Paul Fischer

Hornbæk is a fashionable seaside resort town on the north coast of the Danish island of Sjaelland, facing the Øresund which separates Denmark from Sweden. Originally a small fishing village, by the late eighteenth century, drawn by its magnificent sandy beach, the well to do from Copenhagen took to frequenting it. Artists followed, among them Peder Severin Krøyer, Holger Drachmann, and Carl Locher, and Kristian Zahrtmann, before they moved on to Skagen and formed the Skagen colony there. Fischer evokes a halcyon day by the sea shore, at a time before mass tourism took hold of the resort with the opening of the Hornbæk railway in May 1906.

Paul Fischer’s formal training as an artist lasted only a short time when he spent two years at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen. Supported by his father, a manufacturer of paints and lacquers, he worked from 1878-88 at the family factory while all the while exhibiting at the annual Charlottenborg Spring exhibitions. His earlier paintings depict city life, for which reason he became dubbed ‘Copenhagen's painter’ (Københavns maler). However, following his stay in Paris from 1891–1895, where he came into contact with the French Impressionists, his palette became richer and lighter.