From the end of the 1870’es through to the early 1900’s, Skagen became an internationally renowned and fashionable venue for Scandinavian and European artists, who were fascinated by the stunning, untamed landscape and the fishing community. Its location between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea created an especially favourable working environment for the young painters adhering to the naturalistic plein airism. Their preferred motifs were the landscape and the beaches by the sea, everyday life in the fishing village and the tiny sunlit rooms. Through their Skagen paintings the artists achieved world-wide fame at the great exhibitions in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Venice, Chicago and elsewhere.

Skagens Museum, founded in 1908 by a group of the Skagen painters, houses 2000 paintings, drawings, sculptures and handicrafts by artists working in Skagen between 1870 and 1930 – plus the Brøndum Dining Room, with paintings and artists’ portraits mounted in the paneling,transferred from the Brøndum’ s Hotel in 1946. Many of the art works reflect the period of naturalism and plein air painting in the last decades of the 19. century when the artist colony in Skagen flourished. The museum is situated in a lovely garden right next to Brøndums Hotel, where many of the artists stayed and gathered, and close to the home of Michael & Anna Ancher.