Magnussen's art dealership and received attention that boosted her career as an artist. Copenhagen, Denmark Wegener won two sketching competitions in the Politiken newspaper. One was in 1908 and another in 1909 for best capturing "Copenhangen Women" and then "The figures of the Street." Wegener was known for her illustrations created for advertisements and was also a portrait painter. She did art in Paris, but was less successful in Denmark, where people found her work very different and strange as it often portrayed her husband as a woman. Paris, France In 1912, Wegener and her partner, Lili Elbe, moved to Paris, France. In Paris, Wegener began to push the boundaries in her artwork by creating more provocative paintings of women engaged in sexual activities and seductive positions. She often painted herself with Lili Elbe or Lili alone either portrayed as a man or a woman. Her work gained her attention and she was able to throw parties and experience notorious fame. Along with this, her work in the fashion industry took off as she illustrated for magazines such as Fantasio, Vogue, and La Vie Parisienne. Her illustrations were used in a wide range of platforms from beauty advertisements to political anti-German images in the Le Matin and the La Baïonnette during World War II. In 1925, she won two gold medals and a bronze one for her artwork in competition at the 1925 World Fair in Paris. She was exhibited in the Salon des Humoristes, the Salon des Indépendants, and the Salon d’Automne. She befriended Ulla Poulsen (1905–2001), a Danish ballerina, who became a frequent model for her paintings. She and her spouse were also close friends with artist Rudolph Tegner and his wife Elna. Personal life Lili Elbe She met fellow artist Lili Elbe – then known as Einar Wegener – at art school. They married in 1904, when Gerda was 18 and Lili was 22. They travelled through Italy and France, eventually settling in Paris in 1912. The couple immersed themselves in the Bohemian lifestyle of the time, befriending many artists, dancers and other figures from the artistic world, often attending carnivals and other public festivals. During this time Elbe began to wear female clothing, and adopted her female name and persona, becoming Gerda Wegener's favourite model, in paintings of beautiful women with haunting almond-shaped eyes dressed in chic fashions. In 1913, the art world was shocked when