An exceptional Danish sculptor
In Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen’s hands, clay, bronze, plaster, and wax become organic forms by which humanity and nature merge.
She challenges our perception of hierarchies and authority, and of the relationship between body and world. With a keen sense of both anatomy and spirit, Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen shaped horses, bulls, mermaids, and centaurs as living beings endowed with will, dignity, and presence. The exhibition, produced in collaboration with artist and photographer Jesper Just, presents around 200 of Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen’s original models and sketches in a sensuous exhibition space.
This engaging exhibition is housed in the main building. The building is equipped with an elevator.
The Wax Room
– an unprecedented world of hand-shaped sculptures.
Wax figures were a fundamental part of Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen’s artistic practice, as she created small sketches of her forthcoming works before casting them in plaster and bronze. The wax figures thus represent the very first expressions of Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen’s ideas.
Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen built her small models from whatever materials she had at hand: hairpins and matchboxes. She used her own recipe for wax, which included Venetian turpentine, pitch from Burgundy, and unsalted butter—ingredients that still leave a slightly rancid scent emanating from the lifelike figures.
Museum Odense houses around 200 wax figures that have until now been kept under secure conditions in the museum’s storage. They are now presented in a specially constructed, climate-controlled display case. Welcome to The Wax Room.