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Karl Larsen (1897-1977), was a Danish painter. The parents were laborers, later lantern teeth Carl Christian Larsen and wife Malene Kirstine Jensen, Karl Larsen married Bertha Louise Katrine Højgaard Christensen in 1920.

Together with Vilhelm Lundstrøm, Svend Johansen and Axel Salto, he formed the artist group De Fire. Already in 1917, he had a breakthrough with the work "En trappegang", which is inspired by cubism. He expressed himself not only in painting, but also in sculptures, drawings, watercolor and mosaic.

Karl Larsen apprenticed as a painter with August Tørsleff in 1911 and went to Technical School in Copenhagen in the winter of 1912-13. At the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, he studied mosaic at the decoration school in 1929.

In 1921-25 he traveled to and lived in France and Italy. For a time, the stays were carried out together with the friends and colleagues from "De fire": Svend Johansen, Vilhelm Lundstrøm and Axel Salto. Later he made trips to Italy, including Rome in 1969, and to Uganda in 1970.

The work with clear cubist inspiration "En Trappegang" from 1917 stands today as the main work in Karl Larsen's career, but also as one of the most significant works of the early Danish modernist. Later he developed in several areas in the art of painting. His naturalistic portrait of the art collector Chr. Tetzen-Lund's mother brought him the Eckersberg Medal as early as 1919. Later he developed a more expressive expression in portraits as well as arrangements and landscape paintings from his travels. Different forms of expression, studies of compositions and materials became a lifelong work process.

A shorter stay at the Academy of Fine Arts' Decoration School gave Karl Larsen the opportunity to work with mosaics. He was given decoration tasks in the public space and carried out, among other things, a. six window glass mosaics for the main staircase in the former School of Crafts in Ahlefeldtsgade in Copenhagen 1960, 1964, and a glass mosaic for Søllerød Church 1966.

As a sculptor, Karl Larsen designed a number of animal sculptures for Den kgl. Porcelain factory in the 1940s. He carried out the studies in the Zoo, and the sculptures themselves were subsequently made of stoneware and decorated with Sung glaze. Several of the sculptures can be found in the collection at the museum of Den kgl. Porcelain factory.