On the basis of her novel Vinterbørn (Winter’s Child) from 1976, Danish artist Dea Trier Mørch (1941-2001) created a series of linocut illustrations of everyday scenes which remain an important artistic contribution even today. Her subjects are so ordinary that it can be difficult to see what is special about them.

With her pictures of childbirths and pregnant women, Trier Mørch brought a whole new dimension to a visual culture where the story of this universal aspect of the human condition had hitherto remained surprisingly untold. While death is a widespread theme in visual art, the beginning of life is a subject which only attracted greater artistic attention with the advent of the feminism of the 70s.

Dea Trier Mørch’s works fully embrace the tactile and physical when it comes to the body as the starting point for the human being. Her pictures from the maternity ward show respect in giving the woman’s perspective centre stage. The same dignity is evident in her graphic works with their portrayals of the time, where the emphasis is on the social and the collective, and everyday life becomes the gateway to reflections on life itself – from birth to death.

Trier Mørch began as a visual artist – at the age of 16 she was admitted to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts – but she had her popular breakthrough as a writer with Vinterbørn. Moreover she was co-founder of the artist collective Røde Mor (Red Mother) in 1969.

The exhibition presents around 90 of the artist's works on paper.