Jais Nielsen was born on1885 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Born Johann Knud he took the name "Jais," and this is the way he signed his works. He began his studies at Kristian Zahrtmann's art school in 1899, and exhibited for the first time in the 1907 Autumn Salon in Copenhagen. He also participated in a group show with the "Group of Thirteen," some of who had been students with him at the Zahrtmann School.

Nielsen's concentration on the human figure, and especially on movement, was unusual in Denmark at that time. His forms became increasingly simplified in the early years (1907-1911), and his vivid use of color, like the Fauvists, whose work he had only seen in reproductions, was a departure from the su...