Nationality Norwegian | Known for painting | |
Born 27 May 1826 ( 1826-05-27 ) Flekkefjord Died 9 June 1919, Paris, France | ||
Marie Helene Aarestrup (27 May 1826 Flekkefjord – 9 June 1919 Paris) was a Norwegian genre, portrait and animal painter.
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Life
Marie Helene Aarestrup was the daughter of Norwegian magistrate Peter Nicolai Aarestrup and his wife Sara, née Haasted. She received her first artistic training in 1843 with the painter Hans L. Reusch in Bergen, and continued from 1843–1844 in Copenhagen. After his father's death in 1846, she lived from 1848 to 1851 in Copenhagen, where she attended a teachers school. Afterwards, she worked until 1854 as a private teacher in Denmark and Sweden. In 1859, she studied with fr:Jean-Baptiste-Ange Tissier (1814–1876) in Paris. In 1863, she had her first exhibition in Christiania, an Italian shepherd boy. She won a state scholarship, and she studied in Düsseldorf half a year with Swiss painter Benjamin Vautier. From 1865 to 1871, she lived in Bergen. Later she worked again in Paris, first with Tissier, and then at the only female-only studio of French painter Charles Joshua Chaplin. Her work consisted primarily of portraits and genre paintings. The outstanding portrait of Swedish opera singer Christine Nilsson was shown in 1865 at the Paris Salon and 1866 on the Scandinavian exhibition in Stockholm.
Aarestrup worked to not only as a painter, but in other fields, where she also often worked abroad. From 1871 to 1888, she taught English languages. In 1883, her works were presented at the Fisheries Exhibition in London, and in 1886 at the National Art Exhibition in Bergen. In 1872, after she traveled to Poland, the representation of horses was a major focus of her future work. In recognition of this work in 1904 at an exhibition in Paris, she won a silver medal. In her later years she lived mainly in the French capital, where she died in 1919 at the age of 93 years.