Michael Peter Ancher was a Danish impressionist artist. He is most associated with his paintings of fishermen and other scenes from the Danish port of Skagen. His paintings are classics, and he is probably one of Denmark's most popular artists.

Michael Peter Ancher was born at Rutsker on the island of Bornholm. He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Art* (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi) in Copenhagen (1871-5), where his teachers Wilhelm Marstrand and Frederik Vermehren encouraged his interest in genre painting. Here he also met Karl Madsen, who would later become Skagen Museum's first director and who invited him to travel to Skagen. A group of artists had congregated to form the Skagen Painters* in Skagen, a small fishin...