Emilie Demant Hatt in Greenland: New Exhibit by Ivínguak' Stork Høegh at North Atlantic House in Copenhagen

From Emilie Demant Hatt's Sketchbook, Greenland, 1932

A new exhibit, through February 16, 2025, at the North Atlantic House in Copenhagen, explores the work of contemporary Greenlandic artist Ivínguak' Stork Høegh, along with some of the Danish women artists who traveled to Greenland in the twentieth century.  

The exhibit, titled YOU GAZE ON ME — AS I GAZE UPON YOU features the digital photo collages of  Ivínguak' Stork Høegh (b. 1982), who "humorously plays with stereotypical notions of the exotic, which are staged and renegotiated."

The website description continues "Christine Deichmann (1869-1945), Oda Isbrand (1904-1987), Ellen Locher Thalbitzer (1883-1956), Emilie Demant Hatt (1873-1958) and Jette Bang (1914-1964) all traveled to Greenland before 1940. As Greenland travelers female artists, they have largely been written out of Danish art history. Unlike their male colleagues, they did not depict magnificent landscapes and Inuit in national costume, instead they depicted women and children in everyday situations, which are not only looked at, but also look back at the viewer."

It's also possible to watch an interview with the artist (with English subtitles), and download the exhibit catalog from the Danish version on the site. The catalog is in Danish and English and reproduces many of the paintings from the older artists as well as Høegh's collages. 

Emilie Demant Hatt, 1932

The two sketches here were done by Emilie Demant Hatt on a three-month trip to Greenland with her husband Gudmund Hatt in the summer-fall of 1932. Gudmund was there as a geographer and archeologist to help map and excavate ruins of early sites of the Greenlanders, including Erik the Red's home at Brattahlid. Emilie spent her time doing pencil and watercolor sketches of the local people, especially women and children. Some of the paintings she did there and afterwards back in Copenhagen also show Greenland's landscapes and coastlines.

In my biography of her, Black Fox, I talk a bit about the art she did based on Greenland. For the most part Emilie is identified with paintings of Sapmi, so I found it exciting to hear about this new exhibit, which gives her a place, albeit a colonial one, in another milieu, and places her work in dialog with a contemporary artist such as Ivínguak' Stork Høegh.