Mother hen

Description

For over 50 years the South Jutland sculptor Nicolaus Wehding created works for the squares and public spaces of his native region. In 2005 the town of Aabenraa decided to pay tribute by naming a square in his honour: Nicolaus Wehdings Plads.

This space is home to his bronze figure Mother hen, a small monument standing on a granite base. The mother hen protectively spreads her wings, allowing her three half-grown chicks to hide their beaks in her breast feathers.

Unlike the artist’s previous works, this sculpture is much more roughly shaped and has uneven surfaces with marks from hands and tools. In 2002 the art historian Katrine Kampe described the development in his later works for an exhibition of his entire oeuvre held at the museum-castle Brundlund Slot, concluding: “His work has developed in an increasingly expressive direction, where ugliness is parallel to beauty.” Viewers can, themselves, study this development in the many sculptures by Wehding found throughout the South Jutland region.