Asger Jorn

Asger Jorn (1914-1973) was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramicist, writer, and founder of COBRA, the avant-garde art movement. He was also an integral member of Situationist International, a global resistance organization. After graduating college in 1935, Jorn went on to study under Kandinsky in Paris, eventually joining Fernand Leger's Academie Contemporaine, which precipitated his shift from figurative to abstract compositions. From 1937 to 1942, Jorn studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where he honed his signature, eccentric hand. His paintings typified the existential angst of postwar Europe, and often toyed with pre-conceived notions of taste and quality in the Western canon. A life-long anti-capitalist, he famously railed against institutions he deemed corrupt, going so far as to reject the prestigious Guggenheim Prize in 1964 by informing Harry Guggenheim to "Go to hell" via telegram. A prolific writer, activist, and print-maker, Jorn's multivalent approach to artistic production is palpable in his paintings. Stalingrad, his 1957 masterpiece depicting the futility of war is considered to be one of the greatest works ever created by a Danish artist, and is currently on view at Museum Jorn, the Silkeborg enclave dedicated to the conservation and proliferation of Jorn's paintings and personal collections. Jorn is widely considered to be a pioneer of tachiste abstraction, characterized by neogeometric dabs of color applied informally to a canvas. Jorn died in Aarhus, Denmark in 1973 of lung cancer, having spent the last years of his life dedicating his practice to immersive, layered print-making.