Full Name Dagmar Cohn Nationality Danish | Name Dagmar Freuchen-Gale | |
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Died March 9, 1991, Fredensborg | ||
Dagmar Freuchen-Gale (April 25, 1907 – March 9, 1991) was a Danish illustrator, author and editor.
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Personal life
Dagmar was born in Kongens Lyngby, Denmark, to Hans Cohn and Betty Johanne Neustadt. Her parents were Jewish and were members of Det mosaiske Troessamfund. Dagmar left Lyngby in 1938 to come to New York. She married three times. Her first husband was a Danish man named Muller, who was killed during World War II while serving in the Pacific with the American army.
She met her second husband, Peter Freuchen (1886-1957), on December 24, 1944, in New York at a home of some friends they had in common from Denmark. They married in 1945. Peter was a Danish author and Arctic explorer. Beginning in 1945, they lived in New York City and maintained a second home in Noank, Connecticut on Chesbro Street, overlooking Long Island Sound. They appeared together in a well known photo by Irving Penn showing Peter with a beard in a massive fur coat. Peter often travelled for his work during their marriage but is reported to have written home every day and sent a copy of each correspondence to the Danish Royal Library, to be opened 50 years after his death, in 2007. Dagmar joined Peter only once in his travels, on an expedition to Iceland, during which she served native meals including pickled whale blubber and seaweed. During their marriage, she became an expert on various cuisines from around the world. After Peter's death, Dagmar maintained the Noank home until 1963.
Her third marriage was in 1967 to Henry Gale (died 1969), an attorney from New York. She returned to live in Denmark in the early 1970s.
Career
Dagmar was an artist and considered a top fashion illustrator, working for magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. In April 1947, Dagmar illustrated the cover of Vogue which presented “Christian Dior, new house with new vigor, new ideas, here makes a variation of his market-woman skirt—stiffened, standout, pleated at a low mark. The hat is by Maud Roser, white piqué, banded with navy-blue chiffon.” She also taught fashion illustration starting near the end of the 1940s at the Art Students League, and continuing there for 20 years. She edited several of her second husband's books. In 1968, she authored "Cookbook of the Seven Seas," a title that echoes her husband's well-known work, "Book of the Seven Seas." Additionally, she provided an illustration of a Dior dress for Vogue, which was published on March 1, 1955.
Works
