Brøndum's Dining Room | Skagens Museum

Brøndum's Dining Room | Skagens Museum

Brøndum’s dining room

Brøndum’s dining room was designed by the architects Ulrik Plesner and Thorvald Bindesbøll in 1892 in connection with the first major expansion of Brøndum’s Hotel. Following the suggestion of P.S. Krøyer, hotelier Degn Brøndum’s collection of paintings was integrated into the decorative scheme of the room.

The artists, who had been Brøndum’s guests, had through the years given Brøndum portraits of other members of the artists’ colony. These portraits were fitted into a frieze below the ceiling of the dining room.

Since the 1870s, Brøndum’s hotel had been the meeting place of the Skagen painters. The artists gathered here to debate, to eat, and to party. At the foundation of Skagens Museum in 1908, the decision was made to transplant the dining room in its entirety in the future museum building. The museum building was completed in 1928, but the dining room was only moved there in 1946, since Degn Brøndum wished to keep it at Brøndum’s Hotel for the duration of his sibling’s lifetime.

During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, all of the dining room’s paintings were removed and hidden for safe keeping since the German troops made use of the dining room as a gym. In connection with the transfer of the room to the museum building in 1946, the paintings were reinstated in the room. Today, Brøndum’s dining room is an integral part of Skagens Museum.

The dining room contains 81 works of art.