Vejle Art Museum

Vejle Art Museum invites everyone to experience art that is based on and has relevance in everyday life. The art museum’s stories are recognisable and provide a different look at the world around us. Sometimes it is big, other times it is small, but there is always something that leaves its mark!

Vejle Art Museum embraces both the classics and contemporary art that addresses society's difficult questions.

In the experience zone ‘Sanseværk’, you encounter art through playful engagement with all the senses.

See, among others, works by

• Asger Jorn
• Petra Kleis
• Knud Odde
• Gudrun Hasle
• Julie Nord

...and many more!

All the museum's exhibitions have information in English.

Special Exhibitions 2024

Body Impossible Body Incredible

Meet the body ideals of antiquity in a modern artistic embrace.

Experience brand new artworks created specifically for the exhibition and unique plaster casts from the country's best collections, challenged and staged in a sensual and playful scenography.

Until December 15, 2024.

Creatures: Prints from Japan

Fantastic works by Ay-O and Hideo Takeda, never before exhibited in Denmark.

Until September 1, 2024.

It started in 1890

The seed for Vejle Art Museum’s collection was sown in the 1890s, when private citizens donated finds and acquisitions to establish a museum with public access for all citizens.

The first permanent museum building from 1924 was donated by Agnes Benteline Hviid and could be converted into apartments for single ladies if the museum project did not work out.

Fortunately, it did, and in 1933 an extension was built, which served as a library as well as a museum.

In 2007, the latest extension, designed by Kim Utzon Architects, opened, giving the museum a large hall for special exhibitions and space for storage and workshop.

Large collection and permanent exhibitions

Vejle Art Museum’s large collection consists of graphic art, paintings and sculptures.

The museum is a leader in graphics and works on paper with the second largest collection of graphic works in Denmark. The graphics collection was founded in 1899, when Councillor Christian Eckardt bequeathed his collection of old European graphics and drawings by his contemporary Danish artists to the museum.

The approx. 2000 works include 51 etchings by Rembrandt and graphic prints by some of history’s most famous artists. Eckardt’s collection contains works from 1470 till the end of the 19th century. The museum’s graphics collection has expanded over the years and includes significant works, showing the new trends in contemporary art.

The paintings collection, primarily from 1800 to the present day, is mainly centred on existential themes and depictions of landscape and townscape. Here, the focus is on civilization, nature and culture. Portraits of people are a universal theme in visual art in general and well represented at the Vejle Art Museum. Looking at and reflecting in other people is always interesting, not least in visual culture today. Another theme in the collection is the construction of the reality or realities that we are parts of. Portraits, but also landscapes, can, underneath their surface, contain more or less visible narratives that reflect world views and even political messages.

In 1995, Vejle Art Museum acquired the large Wörzner collection. The collection consists of 124 paintings, sculptures, watercolours and pastels, made by young, experimental artists from the late 1930s to 1945. The works were purchased by butcher Max Wörzner, who had a keen eye for his contemporary generation of young artists.

The collection shows how the new, expressive and spontaneous way of painting developed through experiments. Later, in 1948, with Asger Jorn at the forefront, they initiated the international artist movement Cobra with other European artists. The Wörzner collection visualizes the crucial artistic experiments that preceded Cobra.

The Wörzner Collection is currently not on display, while we are preparing a new permanent exhibition featuring abstract art. The new exhibition is expected to open in 2025.

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