Exhibit explores life of Danish trans woman Lili Elbe

(23 Dec 2016) LEAD IN:
An exhibition at Copenhagen's Arken Museum of Modern Art explores the work of Danish painter Gerda Wegener, perhaps best known for her relationship with one of the world's first trans women Lili Elbe.
It's a story made famous bythe Oscar-winning film 'The Danish Girl', and Wegener's work gives an intimate insight into the couple's unique tale.

STORY-LINE:
This major exhibit explores the work of Danish painter and illustrator Gerda Wegener and her relationship with spouse Lili Elbe, one of the world's first trans women.
It's a tale of metamorphosis, which ultimately ends in tragedy.
Through almost 180 works, it's the biggest exhibit of the artist's work yet, over 75 years since her death.
"Gerda Wegener was a very courageous and unique artist. She was one of the early female artists here in Denmark and she became very known, but Danish art museums didn't really buy her works," explains curator, Andrea Rygg Karberg.
"She was always in between of doing fine arts and then also more popular culture or art for the masses, because she was also an illustrator for magazine etc.
"But she was also very known as a painter doing portraits and mainly the portraits of her spouse of Lili, a landscape painter called Einar Wegener whom she married in 1904 and who turned out to be one of the first official trans women in the world, who later on had some of the first operations to become physically, and also by a law, a women."
Having caused furore in her native Denmark due to her supposedly provocative female portraits, Gerda and Einar headed for Paris in 1912.
It was there the couple lived a fashionable life, made possible by Gerda's success as a portrait painter and illustrator for leading French fashion magazines.
It was also in Paris that the couple developed their artistic careers, experimenting with gender and identity.
Einar began posing for Gerda as Lili Elbe.
Gerda found inspiration in Lili's tall, elegant figure, gloved hands and often-wistful face, crowned by a collection of wigs.
"Doing the portraits of Lili, that was mutual creative process that they did together, they created a new person or they found a true identity of a person," explains Rygg Karberg.
"And its a beautiful thing that this happened in art and very unique.
"I think that painting Lili was the most inspiring ever to Gerda Wegener as an artist and together they investigated the codes of femininity."
Unhappy in his male body, Einar gradually dreamed of merging with his wife's depictions of Lili.
With Gerda's support, he began having operations to physically transform from a man to woman.
This unique painting, named 'A Summer Day', is the only one to show both Einar and Lili together.
"We see the landscape painter Einar Wegener in the background with his easel, doing a painting we cannot see," explains Rygg Karberg.
"And in the foreground lies Lili as a nude, as a muse inspiring the male artist.
"So, we see both the passive, object women and then the male creator doing a painting. So it's kind of a metaphor of the duality of Gerda Wegener's spouse."
Ultimately, the operations aimed at physical transformation would result in Lili's death. She died just a year after surgery in 1931.
In Paris, Gerda won great recognition and fame. Three of her works are in the Louvre's collection.
Here in Denmark, she never achieved the same status, shunned by museums and galleries due to her commercial work as an illustrator and sexually charged art.
Today, she's seen as an artist way ahead of her time.
'Gerda Wegener' runs at Arken Museum of Modern Art till 8 January 2017.

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