Temporary exhibition: September 1 – November 25, 2012

On exhibit will be 70 paintings, borrowed from various museums, e.g. the National Gallery of Denmark, KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, as well as from private owners. The selection will be made based on themes and will create a dialogue between Poul Anker Bech (1942-2009) and Niels Lergaard (1893-1982). Poul Anker Bech himself made a point of being inspired by Lergaard – an inspiration that goes much further than suggested by their brief meeting in 1966 as student and professor at The Jutland Art Academy. Their intellectual fellowship is particularly explicit in the paintings of the sea view with the high horizon – often lined by houses, people and landscapes. But it is seen also in the endeavours to find an artistic idiom for the existence of modern man and man's basic conditions.

The exhibition is shown at the Vendsyssel Museum of Art before reaching the Workers' Museum and then the Bornholm Museum of Art. The original concept was developed in 2008 in cooperation with Poul Anker Bech and the exhibition was planned to open on the occasion of his 70 years birthday in April 2012. The painter unfortunately passed away before the exhibition was implemented. Vendsyssel Museum of Art proceeded with the concept and filled his wish that the exhibition should be shown around the country.

Bornholm being the part of Denmark that particularly inspired Niels Lergaard, it was only natural to organise the exhibition in cooperation with the Bornholm Museum of Art. The art and works of Poul Anker Bech fall within the focus area of the Workers' Museum, the life and challenges of man in a modern welfare society.