Edvard Eriksen

Danish Icelandic artist Edvard Eriksen developed a sculptural language rooted in academic naturalism and restrained symbolism, shaped by his traditional training at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. His skills were reinforced by an extended study of marble carving in Italy, visiting Florence, Rome and Carrara during that time. Shortly after his first major exhibition, Eriksen’s breakthrough sculpture, Hope (1904), perfectly aligned with late-nineteenth-century ideals of humanist figuration in its depiction of a mother, modelled after his own wife, with her child. The work’s emotional clarity and technical refinement firmly established his reputation as an eminent sculptor. Eriksen then achieved enduring international recognition with The Little Mermaid, 1913, a synthesis of naturalistic form and poetic symbolism which transformed Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale into a modern national monument for Denmark. A tribute to the ballerina Ellen Price—who was the principal dancer for the inaugural 1909 production in Copenhagen—Eriksen’s sculpture remains one of the country’s most beloved attractions.