Didrik Frisch

Didrik Frisch was a Danish painter who belonged to a wealthy Jewish family that originally came from Poland. He started painting at a young age, guided by his father, who was also a painter and a manufacturer of paints and lacquers. He received a formal art education for only two years at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, but he continued to exhibit his works regularly at Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition from 1884 to 1902. He gained fame as a painter of landscapes and animals, often featuring scenes from the Jægersborg Dyrehave (Deer Park). He was influenced by the works of Frederik Vermehren, who was a family friend. In 1867, he received a scholarship from the Academy to study in Italy. He briefly visited Rome, then went to Florence, where he befriended his fellow Danish painters, Otto Bache and L.A. Schou. During a cholera epidemic later that year, he and Schou were both infected and died in Florence within days of each other. He left behind hundreds of paintings that are now highly valued by collectors and museums.