The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts ( da, Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi - Billedkunst Skolerne) has provided education in the arts for more than 250 years, playing its part in the development of the

art of Denmark Danish art is the visual arts produced in Denmark or by Danish artists. It goes back thousands of years with significant artifacts from the 2nd millennium BC, such as the Trundholm sun chariot. For many early periods, it is usually considered ...

History

The Royal Danish Academy of Portraiture, Sculpture, and Architecture in Copenhagen was inaugurated on 31 March 1754, and given as a gift to the King Frederik V on his 31st birthday. Its name was changed to the Royal Danish Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in 1771. At the same event,

Johann Friedrich Struensee Lensgreve Johann Friedrich Struensee (5 August 1737 – 28 April 1772) was a German-Danish physician, philosopher and statesman. He became royal physician to the mentally ill King Christian VII of Denmark and a minister in the Danish governmen ...

introduced a new scheme in the academy to encourage artisan apprentices to take supplementary classes in drawing so as to develop the notion of "good taste". The building boom resulting from the Great Fire of 1795 greatly profited from this initiative. In 1814 the name was changed again, this time to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. It is still situated in its original building, the

Charlottenborg Palace Charlottenborg Palace ( da, Charlottenborg Slot) is a large town mansion located on the corner of Kongens Nytorv and Nyhavn in Copenhagen, Denmark. Originally built as a residence for Ulrik Frederik Gyldenløve, it has served as the base of the ...

, located on the

Kongens Nytorv Kongens Nytorv ( lit. "The King's New Square") is a public square in Copenhagen, Denmark, centrally located at the end of the pedestrian street Strøget. The largest square of the city, it was laid out by Christian V in 1670 in connection wit ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

. The School of Architecture has been situated in former naval buildings on Holmen since 1996. The academy is larger and better funded than the Jutland Art Academy and

Funen Art Academy Funen Art Academy ( da, Det Fynske Kunstakademi) is an independent, nationally recognized educational institution located in central Odense, Denmark offering a 5-year programme in contemporary visual arts. The academy is funded jointly by the Danis ...

, which offer similar programs. It teaches and conducts research on the subjects of

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...

sculpting Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

graphics Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture, ...

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

,and

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) sy ...

and in the history of those subjects. The academy is under the administration of the

Danish Ministry of Culture The Minister for Culture of Denmark ( da, Kulturminister) is the Danish political minister office responsible for culture, head of the Ministry of Culture of Denmark. The political responsibility for culture, as well as church and education, was ...

. The School of Architecture, Design and Conservation is separated from Schools of Visual arts and therefore is a different institution(KADK)

Institutions

* Kunstakademiets Billedkunstskoler, The School of Visual Arts *

Kunstakademiets Arkitektskole The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture ( Danish: ''Det Kongelige Danske Kunsakademi, Arkitektskolen'') or Kunstakademiets Arkitektskole is an institution of higher education in Copenhagen, Denmark ) , song = ( en, "Ki ...

, The School of Architecture *

Kunstakademiets Designskole The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design, more commonly known as the Danish Design School ( Danish: ''Danmarks Designskole''. often abbreviated as DKDS) is an institution of higher education in Copenhagen, Denmark, offering a five-ye ...

, The School of Design * Kunstakademiets Konservatorskole, The School of Conservation * Det Kongelige Akademi for de Skønne Kunster

Awards

C. F. Hansen Medal The C. F. Hansen Medal (Danish: C. F. Hansens Medaille) is awarded annually with few exceptions to one or more recipients by the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts for an outstanding contribution to architecture. It is the Academy's highest obtainabl ...

Thorvaldsen Medal The Thorvaldsen Medal ( Danish: Thorvaldsens Medalje, Thorvaldsen Medaillen) is awarded annually with few exceptions to a varying number of recipients by the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and is its highest distinction within the visual arts. I ...

Eckersberg Medal The Eckersberg Medal (originally the ''Akademiets Aarsmedaille'' or Annual Academy Medal) is an annual award of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. It is named after Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, known as the father of Danish painting. The Ec ...

Thorvald Bindesbøll Medal The Thorvald Bindesbøll Medal ( da, Thorvald Bindesbøll Medaljen) is an award granted annually by the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts for excellence in the fields of applied art and industrial design. The medal was established in 1979 in connec ...

* N. L. Høyen Medal

Notable alumni and faculty

The School of Visual Arts *

Carl Bloch Carl Heinrich Bloch (23 May 1834 – 22 February 1890) was a Danish artist. Biography He was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and studied there at the Royal Danish Academy of Art (''Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi'') under Wilhelm Marstrand ...

* C. C. A. Christensen *

Lili Elbe Lili Ilse Elvenes (28 December 1882 – 13 September 1931), better known as Lili Elbe, was a Danish painter and transgender woman, and among the early recipients of sex reassignment surgery. She was a successful painter under her birth name Ein ...

Olafur Eliasson Olafur Eliasson ( is, Ólafur Elíasson; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's ...

Andreas Emenius Andreas Emenius (born February 24, 1973) is a Swedish cross-disciplinary artist known for installation, painting, and performance, based in Copenhagen. Emenius has shown work in multiple global biennales as well as museums, and is currently the ...

Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landsca ...

(1794–1798)Koerner, Joseph Leo. 1990. ''Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape.'' Yale University Press. New Haven, Connecticut. 256 pp. (pages 80–81) *

Oluf Hartmann Oluf Hartmann (16 February 1879 – 16 January 1910) was a Danish painter. Trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, he showed his works at important exhibitions in the 1900s. Career Hartmann was born in the house Carlsm ...

Jeppe Hein Jeppe Hein (born 1974, Copenhagen, Denmark) is an artist based in Berlin and Copenhagen.Georg Jensen Georg Arthur Jensen (31 August 1866 in Rådvad – 2 October 1935 in Copenhagen) was a Danish silversmith and founder of Georg Jensen A/S (also known as Georg Jensen Sølvsmedie). Early life Born in 1866, Jensen was the son of a knife gr ...

Asger Jorn Asger Oluf Jorn (3 March 1914 – 1 May 1973) was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International. He was born in Vejrum, in the northwest c ...

Jane Jin Kaisen Jane Jin Kaisen (born May 28, 1980) is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Biography Kaisen was born in Jeju Island, South Korea and adopted to Denmark in 1980. She is Professor of Media Arts at The Royal Danish Academy ...

Karl Kvaran Karl Kvaran (November 17, 1924 – August 9, 1989) was an Icelandic painter and draughtsman. He is considered one of the principal exponents of the geometric abstractionist school of painting in Iceland in the early sixties. Education K ...

Philipp Otto Runge Philipp Otto Runge (; 1777–1810) was a German artist, a draftsman, painter, and color theorist. Runge and Caspar David Friedrich are often regarded as the leading painters of the German Romantic movement.Koerner, Joseph Leo. 1990. ''Caspar Dav ...

(1799–1801) * Heidi Maria Schwarck *

Nína Sæmundsson Nína Sæmundsson or Nina Saemundsson, born as Jónína Sæmundsdóttir (22 August 1892 – 29 January 1965) was an Icelandic artist, known for her sculptures and paintings. She was active between the 1920s until the 1960s in Los Angeles, New Yor ...

Bertel Thorvaldsen Bertel Thorvaldsen (; 19 November 1770 – 24 March 1844) was a Danish and Icelandic sculptor medalist of international fame, who spent most of his life (1797–1838) in Italy. Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen into a working-class Dani ...

The School of Architecture *

Jan Gehl Jan Gehl Hon. FAIA (born 17 September 1936, Copenhagen) is a Danish architect and urban design consultant based in Copenhagen whose career has focused on improving the quality of urban life by re-orienting city design towards the pedestrian an ...

Birgit Cold Birgit Cold (born 1936) was a Danish-born Norwegian architect and educator. She established her own practice in Trondheim together with Tore Brantenberg and Edvard Hiorthøy in 1964 and became a professor at the Norwegian University of Science a ...

Knud Holscher Knud Helmuth Holscher (born 6 May 1930 in Rødby, Denmark) is a Danish architect and industrial designer. For many years he was a partner in KHR Architects with Svend Axelsson and designed many of their works together. Biography Holscher studied ...

Bjarke Ingels Bjarke Bundgaard Ingels (; born 2 October 1974) is a Danish architect, founder and creative partner of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). In Denmark, Ingels became well known after designing two housing complexes in Ørestad: VM Houses and Mountain Dwe ...

Victor Isbrand Victor Isbrand (1897 – 1989) was a Danish painter. Biography Isbrand was born on 6 July 1897 in Copenhagen. From 1913 to 1917 Isbrand studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and from 1930 to 1967, he taught drawing at the School of ...

Arne Jacobsen Arne Emil Jacobsen, Hon. FAIA () 11 February 1902 – 24 March 1971) was a Danish architect and furniture designer. He is remembered for his contribution to architectural functionalism and for the worldwide success he enjoyed with simple we ...

Finn Juhl Finn Juhl (30 January 1912 – 17 May 1989) was a Danish architect, interior and industrial designer, most known for his furniture design. He was one of the leading figures in the creation of Danish design in the 1940s and he was the designer ...

Kaare Klint Kaare Klint (15 December 1888 – 28 March 1954) was a Danish architect and furniture designer, known as the father of modern Danish furniture design. Style was epitomized by clean, pure lines, use of the best materials of his time and super ...

Henning Larsen Henning Larsen, Hon. FAIA (20 August 1925 – 22 June 2013) was a Danish architect. He is internationally known for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Riyadh and the Copenhagen Opera House. Larsen studied at the Royal Danish Academ ...

* Alex Popov *

Steen Eiler Rasmussen Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Hon. FAIA (9 January 1898 – 19 June 1990) was a Danish architect and urban planner who was a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and a prolific writer of books and poetry. He was made a Royal Designer ...

Verner Panton Verner Panton (13 February 1926 – 5 September 1998) is considered one of Denmark's most influential 20th-century furniture and interior designers. During his career, he created innovative and futuristic designs in a variety of materials, especi ...

* Johann Otto von Spreckelsen *

Magnus Steendorff Magnus Gottfrid Steendorff (25 November 1855 – 26 April 1945) was a Sweden, Swedish architect. Background Magnus Steendorff was born in Copenhagen as the only son of Denmark, Danish painter Christian Wilhelm Steendorff (1817–1904) and hi ...

Lene Tranberg Lene Tranberg, Hon. FAIA (born 29 November 1956) is a Danish architect, head architect and a founding partner of Lundgaard & Tranberg. History Lene Tranberg was born in Copenhagen in 1956. In 1977, she was admitted to the Royal Danish Academy ...

Jørn Utzon Jørn Oberg Utzon, , Hon. FAIA (; 9 April 191829 November 2008) was a Danish architect. He was most notable for designing the Sydney Opera House in Australia, completed in 1973. When it was declared a World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007, Utzon ...

Kristian von Bengtson Kristian von Bengtson (born August 1974) is a Danish architect, specializing in crewed spaceflight, a resident of Copenhagen and married to animation director Karla von Bengtson. He is most notable for his involvement in founding Copenhagen Suborb ...

* Martin Nyrop

Directors of the Royal Academy schools

Gallery

Image:Gustav III's Visit to the Konstakadamien 1780.jpg, Gustav III's Visit to the academy 1780 (Martin) Image:Model Class at the Copenhagen Academy.jpg, Model Class at the academy circa 1824 (Lorentzen) Image:Wilhelm Bendz - The Life Class at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, 1826.jpg, Model Class at the academy 1826 (Bendz) Image:Abgusssammlung.jpg, Plaster cast collection 1843 (Exner) Image:Thorvaldsens atelier på Charlottenborg (Johan Vilhelm Gertner).jpg, Thorvaldsen's studio at Charlottenborg, painted by

Johan Vilhelm Gertner Johan Vilhelm Gertner (10 March 1818 – 28 March 1871) was a Danish painter, best known for his portraiture. One of the last students of Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, who was known as the father of the Golden Age of Danish Painting, Gertn ...

while he was still a student at the academy (1836)

Notes and references

External links

Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi

Kunstakademiets Arkitektskole

Det Jyske Kunstakademi

Det Fynske Kunstakademi
* Top 10' World's best Architecture Universities / School

{{Authority control Organizations based in Denmark with royal patronage Organizations based in Copenhagen Organizations established in 1754 1754 establishments in Denmark Danish art sv:Kunstakademiets Arkitektskole