Maren Kirstine Kjaer

Kirsten Kjær was a self-taught Danish painter who specialized in portraits. She was born in 1893 in Vester Torup, where her father was a clerk in the Police Court. She ran away from home at the age of 14 and worked in a bakery. She later took a commercial exam in Aalborg and moved to Copenhagen, where she worked in various offices and took piano lessons. She married the painter Frode Nielsen Dann in 1918 and traveled with him to California, where she had her breakthrough as a painter. She returned to Denmark in 1929 and painted many portraits of the local elite. She also wrote a book about her life in America, which was later adapted into a film. She spent some time in Mallorca, Paris, and Africa, where she painted more portraits and landscapes. She founded the Danish Society of Female Artists in 1916 to promote women's art. She died in 1985 at the age of 91.