Rudolph Tegner, “Hercules and the Hydra”, 1932, Bronze, Rudolph Tegner Sculpture Park, Elsinore, Denmark

Born in Copenhagen in 1873, Rudolph Tegner was a Danish sculptor linked to the Symbolist movement. In the early 20th century his work caused considerable controversy in Denmark. A large number of his works are on display in the Rudolph Tegner Museum north of Copenhagen.

Tegner was the son of politician and businessman Jørgen Henry August Tegner and Signe Elisabeth Puggaard. In his travels as a young man to Greece and Italy, he studied Greek sculpture and was impressed by Michelangelo’s sculptures in the Medici Chapel. Tegner studied at the Royal Danish Academy and worked under the award-winning naturalistic painter Rudolph Bissen. From 1890 to 1893, Tegner collaborated with the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland. He relocated to Paris where he became acquainted with Symbolism, Art Nouveau, and the sculptural works of Auguste Rodin.

Rudolph Tegner’s sculptures in this period were influenced by the stylistic innovations of the Art Nouveau movement and the erotic realism of Rodin’s figurative work. Tegner’s sculptures emphasized powerful and provocative monumental forms that opposed the restrained Neo-classical ideals of contemporary Danish art of the time. He was also strongly influenced by the ideas of German philosopher and author Friedrich Nietzsche as well as the writings of Danish critic and scholar Georg Morris Cohen Brandes who had formulated the principles of a new Realism and Naturalism movement.

In 1897, Tegner returned to Denmark. His first major work was the1891 “A Faun” that was installed at Charlottenburg Palace. He created a statuette in1902  entitled “Lucifer with Brandes’s Head”; this was a homage to the sharp critiques of Brandes towards the repressive norms, authority and hypocrisy that he saw present in the Danish society.

Rudolph Tegner’s most controversial work was his 1909 monument to physician and Nobel Laureate Niels Finsen, “Mod Lyset (Toward the Light)”, that was installed in Copenhagen. Symbolizing Finsen’s theory that specific wavelengths of sunlight have healing properties, the sculpture featured a naked standing man flanked by two kneeling naked women with arms reaching to the sky.

Tegner married Danish painter Elna Jørgensen in 1911. Five years later, he acquired uncultivated land in Danish island of Zealand in the coastal north-eastern area of Helsingør. Tegner constructed a house and subsequently a Minimalist-styled museum and sculpture park dedicated to his work. Beginning in 1917, he installed multiple sculptures of a classical theme in the park; among these is the 1919 “Heracles and the Wild Boar”. Rudolph Tegner died in June of 1950 at the age of seventy-six; his body was buried in a mausoleum at the center of the museum complex.

Notes: Beginning in 1919, Rudolph Tegner started the first edition of “Hercules and the Hydra”. It took about two years for him and a few employees to make the statue in plaster. In 1930, Rudolph Tegner personally  took the initiative to propose to Mayor Peder Christensen that the statue, when cast in bronze, had to stand in Elsinore on the thriving fishing city’s harbor seawall. The statue was later moved but returned to its present location on the twenty-fifth of May in 1944.

The online magazine “Anniversary” has an excellent article by Magnus Host, entitled “Rudolph Tegner-A Misunderstood Artist”, which includes multiple images of Tegner’s work: https://www.anniversary-magazine.com/all/rudolph-tegner-a-misunderstood-artist

Second Insert Image: Rudolph Tegner, “Hercules and the Hydra”, 1932, Bronze, Elsinore, Denmark

Bottom Insert Image: Rudolph Tegnér, “Hercules and the Hydra”, 1918, Plaster Model, Rudolph Tegners Museum, Dronningmølle, Denmark