At the end of the 19th century, Skagen became the centre of one of the most famous artists’ colonies in Europe, known as the Skagen painters. In the beginning it was generally the very young, less established artists who journeyed to the tip of Jutland peninsula in Denmark. The first artists who came to the town at the beginning of the 1870s had met at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen and recommended the town to one another. In Skagen, there was an abundance of plein air motifs, the town had a local population who were usually willing to model for a modest fee, and social and professional fellowship was also a major factor for many artists.

The artists’ colony in Skagen was part of an international phenomenon. Artists came to Skagen from other countries and there were artists’ colonies in several other places in Europe, Russia, North America and Australia at the time. The artists’ colony in Skagen was also visited by authors, composers, musicians, singers, craftspeople, and actors, several of whom were among the most prominent cultural personalities of the era in Denmark and Scandinavia.