It's hard not to talk about gender and love when the conversation falls on Gerda Wegener. The gripping story of the Wegener artist couple is today widely known, not least because of Hollywood's portrayal of the story in the “The Danish Girl”. Once in a while, however, reality trumps fiction hands down. The true story of Gerda and Einar/Lili is a story about incredible strength and courage, and their fate foreshadows many modern gender, marriage, and identity issues.

As an illustrator, Wegener had her breakthrough in 1907–08, where she won a drawing competition for the Danish newspaper Politiken. Prior to this, she attended the Drawing and Painting School for Women and graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts' Art School for Women. As early as 1912, the couple left Copenhagen and settled in the more liberal fashion metropolis of Paris.

Wegener was an empathetic interpreter of mankind, and she liked to highlight feminine beauty. She was very conscious of the power of the gaze, be it masculine or feminine, and her models manage to capture the viewer from across the picture plane. In addition to her work as a portrait artist, Wegener earned her living as an illustrator. Her piquant and often rather decadent women with their red-lipped pouting mouths and almond-shaped eyes were in demand among the leading women's magazines of the time. In 1938, Wegener returned home to Denmark, where she lived a secluded life.

Wegener’s work was for many years been excluded from the walls of art museums, but in 2015–2017 ARKEN presented Gerda Wegener at a solo exhibition which, in addition to being the largest exhibition of the artist's works to date, became a resounding success with audiences.