Karl Bovin

Karl (Kalle) Christian Bovin (1907–1985) was a Danish painter whose work focused on landscapes of Odsherred, a region in the north-west of Zealand. In the 1930s, he became a central member in the Odsherred Painters artists' colony and helped to found the Corner artists association.

Biography Bovin was born in Frederikshavn, as the eldest son of a stone mason. From an early age, he was interested in art. In the 1920s, he cycled to the artists paradise Skagen in the north of Jutland to show his early works to Anna and Michael Ancher. At their encouragement, he attended the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen from 1928 to 1931, where he studied under Sigurd Wandel and Aksel Jørgensen. During his time at school, he associated with a group of constructivists who relied on intuition and observation, but eventually expressed dissatisfaction with their approach to art.

He therefore joined fellow artist Kaj Ejstrup in Odsherred to concentrate on nature and landscape painting. Slowly, other artists followed, forming the so-called Odsherredsmalerne (Odsherred Painters) who founded the Corner painters association. In 1932, one of Bovin's landscapes was bought by the Statens Museum for Kunst, the Danish national gallery, strengthening his reputation as an artist. In the early 1930s, he also spent time with the Funen Painters, especially Johannes Larsen and Fritz Syberg to establish a relationship between the two artists' colonies.

Family Bovin first married the artist Amy Victoria Krog-Jensen in 1934. After this marriage had been dissolved in 1951, he married the painter Bertha (Birthe) Marie Marensine Pedersen in 1952. Known as Birthe Bovin, she also painted watercolors and oils of the Odsherred landscape.