Laurits Andersen Ring, Danish Artist

"Rooks on Plowed Field", by L. A. Ring, 1891. Public domain, copyright expired. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Laurits Andersen Ring, or L. A. Ring, as he is more commonly known, was a Danish painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For reasons I don't understand, he is not well-known outside of Denmark. In Denmark, however, he is celebrated. That status, I believe, is warranted by his work.

"Father Comes Home", by L. A. Ring, 1896. Photographer, Peulle on Wikimedia Commons. Released into the public domain.

Deciding which "school" of art describes Ring is a matter of dispute. I think this minor disagreement arises because the artist was not tied to a technique, but rather to a vision. He painted what he knew and what he felt.

Ring was born (1854) Laurits Andersen, in Zealand, Denmark. The name of his village was Ring. When he entered his work into an exhibit, in 1881, a friend showing at the same exhibit was also named "Andersen". The friend, Hans Andersen, and Ring each decided to take the names of their respective villages to avoid confusion. Ever after, Hans Andersen was known as H. A. Brændekilde and Ring was known as L. A. Ring.

Ring's willingness to adopt the name of his village reflected his affection for his birthplace. Zealand was the focus of much of his work.

"The Bridge and Mill at Karrebaeksminde", L. S. Ring, 1898. The picture hangs in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen. Public domain. Copyright expired.

Ring's work showed great empathy for the ordinary people of Zealand. While his style is characterized as 'naturalist" he also used symbols in his paintings. Late in his career, death was sometimes a prominent theme, as in the piece below.

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"Death and the Old Woman", by L. A. Ring, 1887. The picture hangs in the Statens Museum for Kunst, in Copenhagen. It has been released into the public domain. Wikimedia Commons.

Ring died in 1933. It is hoped that an exhibition of his work will be held at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle, Washington, spring, 2019.

"Waiting for the Train. Level Crossing by Roskilde Highway", by L. A. Ring, 1914. The picture is at the Statens Museum for Kunst and is used under a Creative Commons Universal Public Domain license. Wikimedia Commons