Two young women at Skagen beach.

Laurits Tuxen was the leading Danish painter of the Skagen artists' colony, famous above all for his large royal group portraits, but also a sustained painter of the beach life that Skagen's unique northern light and artist community made famous. Two young women at Skagen beach from 1900 belongs to the tradition of beach scenes that Tuxen, P.S. Krøyer, and their colleagues had developed over decades at the promontory where the North Sea meets the Kattegat. The particular quality of Skagen light — horizontal, northern, and endlessly various — had attracted painters since the 1870s and continued to provide Tuxen with material well into the new century. This work's current location is private or untraced.

Tuxen renders the two women in the open, airy light of the Skagen beach with his characteristic blend of Impressionist color observation and Scandinavian restraint of tone. The beach's expanse and the horizontal light create a composition dominated by luminosity rather than strong compositional structure.