Peder Mork Monsted

Danish 1859-1941

Peder Mørk Mønsted was a leading landscape painter renowned for the clarity of light in his photo-realist style of paintings.

Born in Balle, south of Grena in the easternmost area of the Jutland peninsula of western Denmark, Mønsted later moved to Copenhagen where he studied from 1875 to 1879. His teachers at the Academy of Copenhagen included Andries Fritz, Julius Exner and Adolphe Bouguereau.

A frequent visitor to Switzerland, Italy, the south of France, North Africa and the Middle East, Mønsted gained great knowledge of landscapes through his journeys. He was able to successfully capture the mood and atmosphere of the locales he visited, be it the towering peaks of the Swiss Alps or the tranquility of the woods in his home country.

He had a romantic view of nature and depicted the grandeur and monumental aspect of the landscape with a remarkable eye for detail and colour. Although most well known for these landscapes, Mønsted did paint portraits and figurative scenes also.

Mønsted was the favourite painter of King George of Greece and in 1893 he was invited to Athens whereupon he spent a year painting the city and the Greek countryside.

Works by Mønsted were exhibited at the Charlottenborg Palace in Copenhagen and today his paintings can be found in public and private collections the world over.

The Dahesh Museum of Art in New York and the Chi Mei Museum in Tainan, Taiwan hold works by Mønsted.