Gottfred Rode

"Gottfred Andrew Anderson Rode was painter. He was born on 12.03.1862 in Torstedlund, Aalborg County and died 14.09.1937 at Frederiksberg. His parents were tenant Hans Christian Valdemar Rode and Helen Anderson. On 18.12.1897  he married the painter Ingeborg Matha Kolling in Gladsaxe, who also had a painter career. She was born 25.09.1865 in Copenhagen and died 30.06.1932 in Englerup.....

Gotfred Rode made his now best known work as underglaze painting at the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufactory straight, but in parallel, he worked as a landscape painter and perceived both sides of his work as equals. Rode painted in the naturalist tradition, on the basis of outdoor studies, landscapes where animals rule was the main subject. He was a safe draw with attention to compositon and for the depicturing and particularly his ability and interest to portray diurnal changing light and air, usually in the evening moods, was noted. Rode´s contemporaries described him as a cultivated painter and quietly cultivated also dominated his prized teaching career. As a porcelain painter was Rode centrally located in the generation that broke with art nouveau followers  and introduced the naturalistic, Danish design, simplified and finely incorporated in the vase or plate's round shape and which contributed to a renewed interest in underglaze painting in the 1920s.

Rode reached a preliminary diploma apprenticed at a pharmacy in Køge 1878-82; cand. pharm. 1883. Then he joined the Arts Acacdemy in Copenhagen, Model School, Opt. Trial in October 1892 dep. November 1895. During his active time he travelled to Holland and Germany.

Rode was employed at the drugstore in Randers 1883-89; as a chemist Assens Sugar Factory 1888-89; pharmacist in Viborg 1889-92; he joined the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain factory as underglaze painter in 1896 and stayed there until 1933; he was examiner at Charleville. Spring 1899-1900, 1916; by KE 1907 1911; teacher at forb.- and Model School, the Arts Academy in Copenhagen. 1902-20; in anatomy character., ibid. 1920-37."

Information source: Kunstindex Danmark & Weilbachs Kunstnerleksikon