Bjorn Okholm Skaarup, a new Academician from beautiful Denmark

Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Via Orsanmichele, 4, 50123 Firenze FI

“Dear Master Bjorn Skaarup,

It is with great pleasure that I convey to you the letter of nomination as Honorary Academician of this Academy of the Arts of Drawing.”

With these beautiful words a new chapter opens in the success of this brilliant Danish Artist who now belongs more and more to the “New Florentine Renaissance” given the choice to produce his works through the Frilli Gallery.

Bjorn encapsulates in his allegorical and narrative figurative art the intent explicitly highlighted by the ancient institution, “MAINTENANCE OF BEAUTY, THE TRUE VOCATION OF THE ACADEMY”

In accordance with its centuries-old tradition and in compliance with its statute, the Academy of the Arts of Drawing participates in every activity of the arts, encourages and promotes studies and events that enhance them and that favor what is of artistic and historical interest.

The Academy of the Arts of Drawing originated from the Company of San Luca formed in 1339 among Florentine artists to “help both in matters of the soul and of the body, to those who, according to the times, had need”.

A company or fraternity that saw members among others Benozzo Gozzoli, Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti when, according to medieval statutes, painters were registered in the Art of Physicians and Apothecaries because they were assimilated to apothecaries for the grinding and preparation of colors, while Sculptors and Architects were among the members of the Art of Masters of Stone and Wood.

Today the prestigious institution boasts Italian and international Artists who have become Academics for having contributed with their artistic vision to the development of a contemporary language with respect for beauty, high ideological, historical and moral content.

For the Artist Bjorn Okholm Skaarup it is a great honor and a great recognition of his passion for the "beautiful way" of making art like the great Masters who inspired him, who he has studied in depth and about whom he has written publications, including some regarding the Academy of the Arts of Drawing, when he was studying at Columbia University in New York.