Harald Rudyard Engman (1903-1968)
was a
Danish artist, painter. Above all, he is remembered for his fierce use of satire in criticizing and resisting the
German occupation of Denmark
At the outset of World War II in September 1939, Denmark declared itself neutral. For most of the war, the country was a protectorate and then an occupied territory of Germany. The decision to occupy Denmark was taken in Berlin on 17 December ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
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Biography
Little has been published about Engman's life. It is known that he traveled as a working seaman and spent some time living in New York City's Chinatown around 1920. He began to show paintings in
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 ar ...
in the mid 1920s. He became part of a group of self-styled "Underground Painters". His shows always inspired controversy as he utilized caricature and satire to mercilessly criticize social ills and those in power especially the growing power of the Nazi Party in Germany. These shows culminated in 1940 with the "Black Banners" show in Copenhagen aimed directly at the Nazi leadership. Refusing to remain silent about Hitler, Engman "depicted Der Fuhrer, not as a genius of satanic majesty, as many Danish Anti-Nazis saw him, but as a psychopathic misfit, a frightened and conceited fool, sort of a ludicrous master clown of the world's arena."
Following this show Engman was forced into exile in the North
Zealand
Zealand ( da, Sjælland ) at 7,031 km2 is the largest and most populous island in Denmark proper (thus excluding Greenland and Disko Island, which are larger in size). Zealand had a population of 2,319,705 on 1 January 2020.
It is the 1 ...
and eventually fled occupied Denmark for
Sweden where he remained through the war. From Sweden he continued to fight the Nazis with his art painting and contributing drawings to the journal "The Dane" as well as some Swedish publications.
Artistic style and works
Engman's artistic style was fiercely independent and self-taught. He did not move in the modern directions of surreal or abstract art, nor was he following the traditional Danish folk painters. His style combines a keen sense of caricature occasionally verging on the comic with a real mastery of the use of light and color to evoke emotion.
References
Literature
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External links
Examples of Engman's paintingsHigh-Resolution zoomable annotated version of the Human Pyramid painting
{{DEFAULTSORT:Engman, Harald
1903 births
1968 deaths
20th-century Danish painters
Danish satirists
Danish cartoonists
Danish caricaturists