Anna Klindt Sørensen
Intro
The Petersborg Villa was built in 1909 in Italianate style. It is named after the builder, Peter Boisen, who was the father-in-law to the principal of Ry Højskole (Ry College) at that time.
The most famous owner was the painter Anna Klindt Sorensen. She was born in 1899 at Stensgaard in Gl. Rye (Old Ry) and at the age of twenty she became student at the Danish Academy of Visual Arts in Copenhagen. Here she was very active in the rebellion against the conservative and male-dominated environment, and she fought all her life for female artists' rights.
In the twenties and thirties, Anna stayed in Paris where she lived an austere life as an artist and earned her living as a nanny and domestic help.
Back in Denmark, she worked in her apartment in Copenhagen and in villa Petersburg, which she inherited in 1962. But she also traveled a lot - in the Nordic countries, in Europe and to Africa.
Anna Klindt Sorensen received many awards and medals for her artistic work. In 1976 she received the Thorvaldsen Medal for - as it was said - "the artistic pleasures she has given through the years and for her poetry, imagination and exquisite coloring." She was also honored with the Eckersberg Medal and the Tage Brandt grant and IC Jacobsen's memorial grant, and she received a lifelong artist grant from the Danish state.
During the years she lived in Petersborg, she filled the walls with works of art – both her own and the work of others, especially female artists.
Anna Klindt Sørensen died in 1985 at the nursing home Søkilde in Ry, and she is buried in the family grave at Gl. Ry cemetery.
In 1986 a group of citizens formed the "Association for the creation of Anna Klindt Sørensen's Museum in Ry." Petersburg is now in private ownership, but the lovely garden surrounding the villa is open to the public, and the association continues to work towards realizing the dream of a museum.