The New Carlsberg Foundation is a private and independent foundation for the arts. The effort to foster and benefit the arts in the founders’ fatherland forms the core of the foundation’s charter, which was signed on 20 January 1902 by brewer Carl Jacobsen and his wife, Ottilia Jacobsen.
In this context, ‘arts’ is understood not only as pictorial arts but also includes industrial art, architecture and landscape gardening ‒ and in the broadest sense, that is, also where expressions from the pictorial arts connect with related art forms and contexts.
The foundation, whose charter and activities are still shaped by Carl Jacobsen’s passion and energy, aims to promote the role of art in Danish society, based on the conviction that art has the capacity to enrich human life and our world. The foundation wishes to be a dynamo in highlighting art as a force capable of promoting critical thinking and a nuanced worldview.