The Bornholm school of painters started to take shape towards the beginning of the 20th century on the Danish island of Bornholm

Bornholm

Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea located to the east of the rest of Denmark, the south of Sweden, and the north of Poland. The main industries on the island include fishing, arts and crafts like glass making and pottery using locally worked clay, and dairy farming. Tourism is...

 when a number of artists developed a distinctive style of classic modernism, inspired by the island's unique landscapes and light. Karl Isaksson and Edvard Weie

Edvard Weie

Viggo Thorvald Edvard Weie was a Danish painter. His style was influenced by journeys to Italy and Paris where he came into contact with French impressionists such as Cézanne....

 were among the first to paint the island's constantly changing natural beauty, using pure, subdued colour to produce work in new aesthetic directions. They were soon joined by other Danish artists including Niels Lergaard

Niels Lergaard

Niels Lergaard was a Danish painter. After training as a house painter, he spent a few years in Norway, where he became interested in Norwegian landscape painting...

, Kræsten Iversen

Kræsten Iversen

Kristen "Kræsten" Iversen was a Danish artist who is remembered both for his paintings and his painted glass windows.While studying at Copenhagen's Technical Academy, he quickly developed contacts with the artists of the day. By 1919, his colourful work was already being successfully exhibited...

 and Oluf Høst

Oluf Høst

Oluf Høst was the only member of the Bornholm school of painters who was a real Bornholmer. Although he had studied in Copenhagen, he returned to the Danish island of Bornholm in 1929 where he remained with his family until he died. Bognemark, the little farmhouse near Gudhjem was one of Høst's...

. They lived mainly in the picturesque little ports of Gudhjem

Gudhjem

Gudhjem is a small town and fishing port on the northern coast of the Baltic island of Bornholm, Denmark. Its population is 724 ....

 and Svaneke

Svaneke

Svaneke is a small town on the eastern coast of the Baltic island of Bornholm, Denmark....

 on the northern coast, adventuring at times over to the small island of Christiansø where they found further seclusion and inspiration.

Many of the works of the Bornholm School can be seen in the Bornholm Art Museum

Bornholm Art Museum

The Bornholm Art Museum is situated on the Danish island of Bornholm, above the Sanctuary Rocks about six kilometres north-west of Gudhjem. The building was constructed in 1993 and enlarged in 2003...

 near Gudhjem and in the Oluf Høst Museum in Gudhjem itself.