DANISH Side: An Artist Amongst Us

This hand-drawn graphite sketch has always intrigued me.

Our bedstefar (grandfather) had it hanging in his dairy office when I was young. It may very well have been hanging on that same wall since he became it’s manager back in 1931. Lost amongst other larger framed dairy award medallions, certificates, photos of past dairy managers and paintings depicting typical Danish landscapes, it seemed out-of-scale compared to it’s hanging neighbors. May it had caught my attention simply because I had started drawing at an early age…and it seemed something as a pre-school child I thought I could one day accomplish myself. I often would ask him about the drawing. He claimed he did not recall who did it…only that it was a family member.

 When our grandparents moved from the dairy it made the journey as well to the new house; and, it found a new home on my grandfather’s office wall. It must have been special to him.  Otherwise, this inconsequential little piece could easily have been tossed out or left behind. 

As I continued to learn how to draw myself, my interest in this little mysterious sketch never was far from my mind. It remained in his office for the remainder of his years. When our family would come back from the states and visit them, I would still pass my time in his office drawing with this little reminder from my youth still looking back at me.  Still my inquiries continued; but, did I ever get an answer?  Unfortunately, it was always the same response as when I was little…it was done by some relative. There was nothing more to his answer.

When he finally passed away in 1997, it did not occur to me that our uncle might decide to pass it on to me. But, he did and for that I am most grateful. Though it’s not much of a masterpiece, this oddly sweet drawing always has held a fond connect to my grandfather and of course, it still holds the initial mystery of who drew it.

Original size of paper: 6.25” x 8.25” (16cm x 21cm)

Now that I have ventured into our genealogy the signature may reveal more than it did years ago.

There are some clues here:

• a creek with wooden dock
• house or barn near water
• year of ‘1856’ on the building

and this signature shown enlarged:

H.O.Hansen 1928

Though this may seem like a lot of clues. It still does not answer two questions for me. The first being…who drew this and the second where might this have been drawn. I only hope that in my quest to expand our Danish side of the ancestral tree that this person will reveal themselves on one of the branches.

Guess…it will continue to intrigue me until that answer is revealed.

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(email: Friday, July 22, 2011)

With special thanks from Jens Kjær Jørgensen (http://www.kornmark.dk/) who has a great danish blog highlight local history from the area of my ancestors and family, here is a little follow-up to a few questions posed by this earlier post for where this sketch may have been drawn.

I sent Jens a copy just out of general curiosity to see if I would  get a hit. Low and behold we sent me back some great answers on the actual location where this was drawn:

Fiskerhuset ved (Fish House) Moesgård Strand

Perhaps, the nicest part of this know that still exists.

Courtesy of Mårslet Egnsarkiv.

"Fish House on Moesgård Strand"

 translation to follow....on this article.

stay tuned!

: )