Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe

Frederiksberg Castle. Signed E. Wegener 1911. Labelled and titled on the reverse. Oil on canvas. Without frame. 75 x 60.5 cm. With a few flakes on canvas. The artist Lille Elbe was born under the name Einar Wegener and was one of the first transgender women to have a sex change operation. Elbe trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 1902-04. Here she met the artist and painter Gerda Wegener (née Gottlieb) (1886-1940), whom she married in 1904. The couple moved permanently to Paris in 1912, where they became part of the liberated international art scene. As a young woman, Elbe painted scenes from her hometown of Vejle, while later in life she focussed on landscapes from the French provinces. Gerda Wegener often used Lili Elbe as a model for her portraits of women in her works, and Elbe often painted backgrounds and colour schemes for Wegener's paintings. However, Elbe's involvement in her wife's career meant a downplaying of her own artistic endeavours. In 1930, Elbe began her sex change operations in Berlin and Dresden and managed to be officially recognised as a woman with a new name and passport, and her marriage to Gerda Wegener was declared invalid. Lili Elbe died in 1931 as a result of complications from one of her operations. litt. BR.