Johanne Agnete Theresia Pedersen-Dan née Betzonich (1860–1934) was a Danish actress, singer and sculptor. After performing in plays and operettas in Copenhagen until 1888, she devoted the rest of her life to sculpture, frequently exhibiting her work at Charlottenborg. Johanne Pedersen-Dan and her husband

Hans Peder Pedersen-Dan Hans Peder Pedersen-Dan (1 August 1859 – 21 April 1939) was a Danish sculptor. Early life and education Pedersen-Dan was born at Itzehoe in Schleswig-Holstein. He was the son of Ole Pedersen (1820-1902) and Elisabeth Sofie Johansen (1821-1890) ...

lived and worked in Hvidovre Rytterskole in

Hvidovre Hvidovre is the main town in Hvidovre Municipality, Denmark. The town, a suburb of Copenhagen, is about 10 km southwest of the capital's center. It is the 2nd biggest suburb of Copenhagen, only beaten by Frederiksberg. History Hvidovre has ...

from 1912 to 1936.

Early life

Born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

on 13 May 1860, Johanne Agnete Theresia Betzonich was the daughter of the writer Georg Betzonich (1829–1901) and Christiansine Nicoline Møller (1833–1923). In 1882,

Acting career

Pedersen-Dan embarked on her career as an actress, encouraged by her cousin, the successful actress Elga Sinding. She débuted in 1876 at

Folketeatret Folketeateret is a theatre in Oslo, Norway. The building has been used as a movie theatre and as an opera house. The theatre has 1,400 seats. History The theatre itself operated from 1952 to 1959, but the institution has a much longer history. ...

, as the baroness in P. Rawsky's ''Familien Danielsen''. She went on to perform in plays and operettas, including Offenbach's ''La Vie parisienne''. She also performed at the Casino Theatre and at the Dagmar Theatre.

Sculpture

She began to study sculpture with

Stephan Sinding Stephan Abel Sinding (4 August 1846 – 23 January 1922) was a Norwegian-Danish sculptor. He moved to Copenhagen in 1883 and had his breakthrough the same year. In 1890 he obtained Danish citizenship. In 1910 he settled in Paris where he lived ...

, her cousin's husband, and debuted at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition in 1890 with the glister sculpture of a female

snake charmer Snake charming is the practice of appearing to hypnotize a snake (often a cobra) by playing and waving around an instrument called a pungi. A typical performance may also include handling the snakes or performing other seemingly dangerou ...

. She married the sculptor

in 1892.

She was represented on the

1895 Copenhagen Women's Exhibition The Women's Exhibition from the Past and Present ( da, Kvindernes Udstilling fra Fortid og Nutid) held in Copenhagen in 1895 was an art and culture exhibition for women from the Nordic countries. Inspired by the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, it ...

as well as on exhibitions in Munich in 1892, 1909 and 1913 and at the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordi ...

in Chicago in 1893. She received the Neuhausen Prize in 1903 for the statuette ''Little Mother''. In 1906 she won an international competition for an emblem advocating women's right to vote. The emblem was released in both Europe and the United States. Pedersen-Dan and her husband went on several story trips abroad, especially to Paris and Italy but also to North Africa in 1904. The couple lived and worked in the former cavalry school in

from 1912 to 1936. She was a board member of the Danish Sculptors Society.

Personal life and legacy

Memorial plaque dedicated to the sculptor Hans Peder Pedersen-Dan

Johanne and Hans Peder Pedersen-Dan adopted a girl, Rigmor.Johanne Pedersen-Dan died on 21 May 1934. She is buried at Hvidovre Cemetery. A plaque on one of the gables of Hvidovre Rytterskole commemorates that Johanne Pedersen-Dan and her husband lived and worked in the building from 1912 to 1936.

List of works

* ''Snake charmer'' (plaster, 1890) * ''By the Stream'' (plaster, 1891) * ''A Forest Nymph'' (plaster, 1892) * ''After the Storm'' (plaster, 1894) * ''Woman Sleepwalker'' (1902) * ''Little Mother'' (1903) * ''Santa'' (plaster, 1905) * ''Forest Idyll'' (bronze, 1898) * ''On the Slave Market'' (1006)

References

External links

Johanne Pedersen-Dan
at

Kunstindeks Danmark ''Weilbachs Kunstnerleksikon'' (Weilbach's Biographical Dictionary of Artists) is a Danish biographical dictionary of artists and architects. The current edition, which is also freely accessible online, contains the biographies of some 8,000 Danis ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Petersen-Dan, Johanne 1860 births 1934 deaths People from Hvidovre Municipality Actresses from Copenhagen Danish sculptors