Cora Josephine Turner with Christian Krohg in Paris (1907-1908)


In Jan Gordon's "A Girl in the Art Class" (1927), "Raymonde Carpenter" (Cora Josephine Turner) encountered a "M. Gruke":
 "A class had now been begun upstairs at Issor Calo's under the tuition of a M. Gruke, a well-known Scandinavian painter. I joined this class for a month."

"In M. Gruke's studio I found a number of intent crop-headed Scandinavian men and of equally serious, flaxen-haired women, painting the nude figure in variegated tones of yellow, green and purple with harshly  drawn ultramarine outlines." This was in stark contrast to the teachings of the Slade school in London, in which nature was seen "as something cautiously tinted upon a seriously drawn and evaluated background of burnt sienna, yellow ochre and black." Gruke gave his class "solid and lengthy criticisms in his queer Scandinavian sing-song intonation."

"M. Gruke himself was an enormous man who had widened with age. At my first criticism I was lost behind his back, and some moments of confusion ensued before he and I, mutually turning in contradictory directions, could become known to each other."

"Gruke" is a Jan Gordon "sounds-like" pseudonym for Christian Krohg (1852 – 1925), a Norwegian painter, illustrator, author and journalist. There is a record of Xan Krohn studying at the Academie Colarossi under Christian Krohg in 1907-1908 and his son, Per Krohg, also studied under him at the Académie Colarossi (1903–07). I wonder if Cora met the Wallins at this class.



Christian Krohg by Oda Krohg (Oslo Museum)

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