(Nude in the landscape)

Wanda Agnes Reichman-Roose

With a nod to fellow woman artist, German Expressionist Paula Modersohn Becker, Scandinavian artist Wanda Roose (born Wanda Agnes Reichman) created this etching of a woman emerging from a natural rock pool around 1910. As with much of her printed work, it's done in a small format and is simple in execution, yet despite these limitations it holds tremendous beauty and mystery. Roose was especially known for her images of the natural world, and figurative works were less common in her oeuvre with female forms often appearing as mythical creatures. In this image, there is nothing whimsical or fantastical about the subject; it's merely a study of a candid moment. As the woman climbs out of the rock pool, she looks back at her viewer, matter of factly and unabashed.

This image was in the collection of art history scholar Georg Brochner, Danish critic and author, who wrote for the British art magazine "The Studio" in the early 20th century.

Wanda Agnes Reichman-Roose was born in Moscow, Russia on September 15, 1882, the daughter of engineer and state councilman Sigismund Reichman and Caroline Le Verrier. As Wanda grew up she showed an undeniable passion for painting, and though her family wanted to remain in Moscow, they recognized Wanda's artistic gifts and moved to Sweden, where she was able to obtain an extensive international degree. She studied art in Warsaw from 1900-1902 and, with a recommendation from a Polish professor, Roose attended the Academi Colarossi de Paris, from 1900-1902 where she studied with Norwegian artist Christian Krohg and also studied in Italy. At the Acadamie she met Danish painter Aage Valdemar Larsen Roose, and they married in 1907 in Denmark, where they had daughter Gunvor Wanda. They moved for some time to Filipstad, Sweden.

Wanda Roose participated in a number of Danish and international exhibitions. In Sweden she exhibited with her husband at the Stockholm Art Museum in 1919 and the Museum of Värmland in 1950. Her artwork consists of landscape paintings from, among other things, the Swedish summer landscape executed as oil paintings or woodcuts. Wanda Roose is represented with her printmaking at the Art Museum's collection in Copenhagen and at Lund University Art Museum in Lund, Sweden.

Wanda Roose died in Copenhagen, Denmark on September 2, 1965.