Anders Peter Christian Aigens (1870-1940)

Known as Christian Aigens he was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied at the Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler, an art school established in Copenhagen in 1882 as a protest against the policies of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and to provide an alternative to its educational program. The school lasted until 1912 and was central to the Modern development of Danish art.  While there Aigens was taught by Peder Severin Krøyer and  Laurits  Tuxe. He completed his studies at the Art Academy from 1888 to 1890.  He spent much of his life in Copenhagen, summering at Skagen and occasionally taking study trips to Switzerland and the Faro Islands. Principally but not exclusively a portrait and figure painter, he belonged to a group of painters that gathered around Poul Friis Nybo who favoured that distinctive lamplit interior distinctive to Danish painting. Between 1908 and 1932 he painted a series of portraits of his friend the writer Christian Engelstoft, one of which is now in the collection of the Museum of Aalborg.