(b Copenhagen, 12 Dec 1890; d Paris, 16 Aug 1916). Painter, grandson of (1) J. A. Jerichau. After the death of his father, Holger Hvitfeldt Jerichau, he trained as an architect for some years, but in 1910 he turned to painting, reaching artistic maturity early. He studied briefly (1911–12) at the Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi in Copenhagen. Of chief importance was his friendship with the art historian Wilhelm Wanscher (1875–1961), whose studies of Raphael and Michelangelo inspired Jerichau’s early figure compositions. He also was deeply impressed by an exhibition of French painting at the Kunstforeningen, Copenhagen in 1911, which included works by Gauguin and Cézanne. During a trip to France in 1912 he divided his time between the Musée du Louvre and viewing the works of Gauguin, Cézanne and van Gogh in Ambroise Vollard’s gallery and the Pellerin collection. Between 1913 and 1915 he painted a series of large compositions that united these heterogeneous influences in a dramatic, simplified figurative style dominated by an Expressionist treatment of form and colour. A key work is Sacrifice/Man Seeks Omens, painted in three versions in 1914–15 (third version; Humlebæk, Louisiana Mus.). In 1915 he spent several months in southern France, where he painted a series of Fauve-inspired landscapes (e.g. Great Palm Tree; Copenhagen, Stat. Mus. Kst). Later that year he went to Spain, where he painted such monumental pictures as Cardinal (Silkeborg, Kstmus.) and Birth of Eve (Copenhagen, Stat. Mus. Kst). His entire oeuvre was presented in February 1916 at an exhibition in Copenhagen and sold afterwards at auction. Jerichau then went to Paris, where he met both Matisse and Picasso and resumed work on large figure compositions. Hecuba (1916; Copenhagen, priv. col.) is a particularly powerful projection of the inner psychological conflicts that led him to take his own life.

Part of the Jerichau family

• Jerichau, Jens Adolf (1890-1916)
  • Jerichau