For a long time they were overshadowed by their male colleagues - now the Museumsberg Flensburg is putting the spotlight on the female artists of Ekensund: an exhibition about talent, perseverance and the art of making your voice heard.

When a painter indignantly exclaimed in 1903 that the new arrivals in Ekensund were "Berlin painters' wives", the verdict on the women in the artists' colony on the Flensburg Fjord was quickly passed. But this derogatory remark concealed a new departure: more and more female artists sought artistic freedom in the seclusion of the north - and had a lasting impact on the colony.

The exhibition at the Museumsberg Flensburg is dedicated to the women of Ekensund for the first time and sheds light on six of their lives, exemplifying the challenges faced by female artists in the early 20th century. Between family obligations, social conventions and artistic ambition, many careers were lost in silence - and yet these women left behind impressive traces.

Ox Island in the Flensburg Fjord, around 1909, Agnes Slott-Møller © Museumsberg Flensburg

Among them is Emmy Gotzmann (1881-1950), who came to Flensburg from Berlin as a young painter and soon caused a sensation with her powerful landscape paintings and modern sense of color. Her works, which once surprised the critics, are the focus of the show. Sophie Eisenlohr and Toni Eckener, closely associated with the Eckener family of artists and the painter Ada Nolde, are also honored as formative figures in a lively art scene.

With paintings, historical documents and personal testimonies, the exhibition tells of courage, passion and the fight for visibility - in the place where their story began over a hundred years ago.
September 28, 2025 to March 8, 2026