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Set i retrospekt var John Kørner meget tilfreds med ud-
stillingen, som også havde fået vældig god respons i Lon-
don. Ikke mindst ideen med oldefaderens båd, der fyldt med
historisk gods i form af abstrakte keramikfigurer kom ri-
dende på historiens bølge med kurs mod fremtiden. 7
Afslutning
I sidste halvdel af marts 2013 kom Boy Petersens gamle båd
tilbage til Fiskeri- og Søfartsmuseet efter en tur og en anven-
delse, som den gamle bådebygger næppe ville have forestil-
let sig. Hvis han havde kunnet, ville Boy Petersen nok også
have kigget en ekstra gang, når han så, at båden ankom med
et britisk transportfirma med speciale i håndtering af sarte
kunstværker. Nu står marskbåden igen på sin vante plads
i Fiskeri- og Søfartsmuseets magasin. Den er ikke længere
helt så anonym, som den måske tidligere kunne synes. John
Kørner gjorde sin oldefars båd til en ganske særlig båd med
mange historier om bord.
Noter
1. Fiskeri- og Søfartsmuseets genstandsregistrant, 1981-9:
Fiskerbåd fra Nykirke (Neukirchen) samt låneaftale med
Nolde-Stiftung 12/5-1/9 2009.
2. Andreas Møller: Både og bådfolk i marsken, Esbjerg
1973, p. 4ff. Citatet fra Emil Noldes bog bringer Møller i
fyldigere udgave på p. 6f.
3. Andreas Møller: op. cit, Esbjerg 1973, p. 26ff. ”Éngangs-
både” og ”Skyttebåde” findes ikke længere bevarede som
fartøjer, men kendes via tegninger og optegnelser. Fiskeri-
og Søfartsmuseet råder over den eneste kendte bevarede
”Togangsbåd” og tre ”Fiskerbåde”, hvoraf den ene har til-
hørt maleren Emil Nolde.
4. Andreas Møller: op. cit, Esbjerg 1973, p. 53f.
5. Fiskeri- og Søfartsmuseets registreringsdatabase num-
rene 1981-9, 1981-19, 1981-31 (Christian Hemsens både)
og 1981-16 (Boy Petersens båd).
6. Interview med John Kørner gennemført af Morten Hahn-
Pedersen 22/3 2013, oplysninger om John Kørner hentet
fra Galleri Bo Bjerggaard på og Den
store Danske Encyklopædi på
7. Interview med John Kørner gennemført af Morten Hahn-
Pedersen 22/3 2013 samt introduktionstekst af Martin
Coomer i udstillingskataloget Fallen Fruit from Friesland
– John Kørner, Victoria Miro Gallery, 2013.
Summary
One of the Fisheries and Maritime Museum’s treasures, a
marsh boat more than a hundred years old, was exhibited at
the fashionable Victoria Miro Gallery in London at the be-
ginning of 2013. The history behind this loan is the subject
of this article.
The inquiry about the loan came from the artist John
Kørner (1967-), whose family came from the marshland
along the west coast of southern Denmark and the German
state Schleswig-Holstein. Until extensive drainage in the
1920s and 1930s reclaimed the marshland north and south
of the Danish-German border, the area had been a veritable
paradise for amphibians for centuries with, to put it mildly,
a fluid transition between the Wadden Sea and the marshes.
This created an unavoidable need for the boat as both a
means of transport and a work tool, not least in the winter
half-year’s month-long periods of flooding. The result was
the development of a special group of vessels – the marsh
boats – of which six different types are currently known, all
of them characterised by a flat bottom and a shallow draught.
The marsh boats were built locally, and a chronologi-
cal record of one of the builders’ total of 45 new boats, of
which a single fishing boat is now preserved in the Fisher-
ies and Maritime Museum, survives. The boat builder was
Boy Petersen (1884-1917), and he was John Kørner’s great-
grandfather.
John Kørner was trained as a carpenter, but he was at-
tracted to art, and over time he built up an artistic style with
a substantial public. Kørner’s works are now represented
in public collections both in Denmark and abroad, and the
artist runs an international exhibition business. In 2012,
Kørner was asked to build up a separate exhibition at the
Victoria Miro Gallery in London, where he had previously
exhibited. With landscape painting as the dominant medium,
Kørner wanted to create an exhibition here which looked at
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