Index

Søren Knudsen

Søren Knudsen was a trained painter & decorator.
He was a patient at this hospital for two periods, one in 1924 and one between 1931 and 1932.

Søren Knudsen was a highly skilled, self taught, draughtsman. His very detailed drawings made whilst a patient here, stand today as references to aspects of a bygone time. They are drawings of the interior, the garden, buildings and details from them, all motifs taken from inside and outside the hospital premises. In his drawings he uses numerous small lines when depicting foliage, brick walls and the sky. The drawings capture a lot of detail by the use of simple lines.

The National Museum of Denmark has acquired some of his drawings of details from mansions and castles around the country. Søren Knudsen was quite a controversial person. He grew his hair long, he was a strict vegetarian and he strongly advocated against vaccinations, tobacco and alcohol.
He was often in conflict with people in his local community. On boards in his hometown he put up his theses and ideologies, such as his strong adversity to the use of cow’s milk and the slaughtering of animals. Opinions that were not well met by the farmers.

Even though eccentric and controversial, he was not clinically ill. In 1932 he was declared by the court as not suffering any mental illness and was immediately discharged from the hospital. For many years Søren Knudsen  collected antiquities which he gathered in what became the first village museum in Denmark.