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TRIBINI’S PORTRAIT
1955
A series of six
portraits, painted in 1955 of Mr. Tribini, represents a somewhat unusual
effort by Skov, since he only rarely painted portraits of others than
family members and almost never participated with other painters in group
events.
The circumstances
were as follows. In the early spring of that year, the author Ole Jordahn,
who was a friend of Skov, arranged to have a suitable two-story building
made available for the purpose of establishing an art gallery at the entrance
to the well-known entertainment area “Bakken”. The name is the short
version of “Dyrehavsbakken” which is a large National Park forest area
located near Klampenborg, immediately to the north of Copenhagen. The idea behind this endeavor was to merge art and
entertainment synergistically, and to make the ambience around Bakken more
sophisticated by adding art shows in order to increase the number of
visitors.
The enterprise
which was named “Gallery Montmatre”, combined an artisan’s workshop,
consisting of six active Danish and Swedish ceramic and glass artisans on
the ground floor, with an art show on the top floor exhibiting paintings
and drawings on rotation by several Scandinavian artists. As part of the
exhibition activities, the participating artists were challenged to join in
a competition, painting one of several selected motifs relating directly to
Dyrehavsbakken. The painters challenge in June/July was Mr. “Tribini”, an
extrovert, very popular local entertainer, well known in Denmark and celebrated by a generation of visitors to
Klampenborg. Since Skov had agreed to participate in the exhibition at
Gallery Montmatre with several of his paintings and decorated ceramic
plates and bowls, he was asked to take part in the painters’ competition.
The result was a series of portraits of Tribini, one of which was awarded
the first prize by the selection committee.
Tribini was an
illusionist, an engaging showman magician, whose enduring characteristic as
entertainer was his fast paced, provocative yet humorous aggressiveness as
the principal huckster among the many expert hucksters at Bakken. He was
always impeccably attired with black silk top
hat, black swallowtail coat and a ball-handled batonlike walking
stick. His
face was not unusual of a man in his mid-fiftieth year who is
somewhat overweight and likes his occasional beer; and his most endearing
feature,
was his folksy attitude blending equal parts of boisterousness,
arrogance
and social equality for all, rich and poor who would pay the nominal
entrance
fee for his show.
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