Nansen, Who?

Niels C.B. Larsen at Gyldendal, the publishing house of which Peter Nansen was director a century ago. Photo: LCL.

Concentration getting to know the secrets of an artwork and all the more so as it was Niels's first encounter with Peter Nansen as portrayed by Valdemar Andersen.

It is a playful portrait. Valdemar Andersen is telling a story in three tiers of a gentleman of the night. He is sitting diagonally on a golden chair, while his blinding white waistcoat, shirt and tie of his evening attire attempts to soak up our attention. He is nonchalance personified to a degree that the less than healthy colour of his skin recedes into the background.

Valdemar Andersen, Peter Nansen, 1911. Gyldendal.

Peter Nansen would have been sitting for his portrait just as he was present when it was first exhibited in 1912. He absolutely consented to the indications laid out. It was a public secret at the time that Nansen had a troubled affiliation with morphine. 

His head is presented on a background of a blue-purple busily patterned wallpaper. It is not making itself known at first sight, but once seen the swirls resemble thought processes circling wildly among themselves. 

In fact there is a lot of detailing for such a tiny strip of room around his figure. The green sofa that is pushing itself into his background was a fixture in any room Valdemar drew around this time. There is no reason why it is here, unless it is to demarcate Nansen's disdain for everything bourgeois.

By this time Peter Nansen had long put his writing career behind him to manage the enterprise that is a publishing house, buying up his competitors. In 1908 he celebrated his 25th jubilee as an author and the satirical magazine Plat'Menagen recounted the festivities as that of a hero: The author who becomes a classic when he is no longer read - or remembered for that matter. 

Valdemar Andersen drew the monument with the first letters of the publishing houses now under one roof for his personal initials. School children would gather around such a monolith, while their teacher would be busy looking him up: Nansen, Who?