Much has been written about Johannes Hofmeister as a painter, but what was he like as a person?In this book, we get up close for the first time to the man from Vendland who started out as a poor bricklayer but ended up as one of the country's most prominent artists.The biography refreshes Hofmeister's great importance in Danish art and is not only a tribute to the popular painter - but also to his native region with its magnificent nature. Why he came to paint a unique portrait of the then Prime Minister Jens Otto Krag to hang in Christiansborg is also told.The journalist Max Bendixen has gotten under the skin of Vendsyssel through 47 years as a summer cottage owner at Tornby Strand. Through conversations with people alive today and quotes from deceased witnesses, the author tries to put the pieces together and fill in a gap in the local cultural history.