About Dorthea Saabye

Art & flowers

I paint and arrange flowers because I cannot help it. The joy of my work is complete when it sparks enthusiasm in others. My artistic expression is about simplicity, the fine line, the graceful, the delicate, the imaginative and the naturalistic. To me, art is about creating something beautiful, where human creativity and imagination are put to the test.

For me, the work always goes through nature, either by working directly with natural materials as a flower designer, or by interpreting nature with my brush as a visual artist. Portraits are one of my favourite disciplines, and I always strive to do the person portrayed justice.

Art runs in the family

I live and work in Hillerød, north of Copenhagen, where my studio is in my home. I am self-taught and have painted for as long as I can remember. Art runs in the family: my great-grandfather was the painter Svend Saabye, and he, my grandfather and my father all studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, my great-grandfather in fine art and the others in architecture. So it was always on the cards, but luckily it is also a huge passion I cannot switch off.

The watercolours began with a nudge from my grandmother, a skilled watercolour and pastel artist herself. She thought I should try watercolour, and that nudge was the start of it all.

Alongside the brush I work as a florist, and I am also a trained anthropologist. The posters and cards came about because I wanted to share what grows out of the meeting between those two worlds. I find my inspiration in nature, in flora and fauna, and with my line I try to put the impressions flowers give me down on paper.

The portraits

History matters a great deal to me. I am interested in my country and in what has made us who we are, and I find it exciting to paint people I deeply respect.

Hans Christian Andersen has been with me since I was a child. His world of stories is both deeply Danish and utterly fantastic. Karen Blixen holds much of what I love: the flowers, the immense creativity, and the way she looked at the people and culture she met in Africa, and at herself in meeting them. I admire Queen Margrethe for her love of painting and flowers and for her great creativity.

My portraits are steeped in symbolism. There are several layers and meanings in each picture, to be found in the faces, in the hair or on the clothes. Look at the papercut and the scissors on Andersen's hat, or the Maasai warrior on the brim of Karen Blixen's hat.

A portrait can take up to 40 or 50 hours, while a less demanding motif can come together in about two and a half hours. I mostly work from photographs, but I also love painting from fresh flowers.

See the posters and cards in the shop.

The Karen Blixen Museum

For more than five years I have worked with the Karen Blixen Museum at Rungstedlund. It began when I wrote to the museum about the portrait I had painted of Karen Blixen and was invited to a meeting. Since then I have painted her at different times of her life: as the young Tanne, before she became the woman we all know, during her years in Africa, and as the older, world-famous author. The posters and cards are sold in the museum shop and by other retailers.

Commissions

I take commissions and love painting personal portraits. Write to me at info@dortheasaabye.dk if you have a motif in mind.

Originals and giclée prints

Originals and numbered giclée prints are not sold in the webshop, but can be bought on request at info@dortheasaabye.dk.