Asger Jorn

Painter Asger Jorn first became well-known as a co-founder of the artists’ group CoBrA in 1948, which questioned the dominance of French Surrealist artists and fostered an expressive and spontaneous formal style. During World War II, he returned to Denmark fleeing German occupation, and after the war co-founded CoBrA, an acronym taken from the founding artists’ home cities of Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam. The group had their first large-scale exhibition in 1949.

In 1957, Jorn helped combine CoBrA and other progressive groups to form the Situationist International group, which rejected the lifestyle foisted on society by capitalism. Jorn participated in documenta II in 1959 in Kassel, receiving widespread international attention for his work, and later became notorious for rejecting a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1964.

He is known for his paintings, lithographs, and etchings, and experimented with spontaneous line and semi-figurative representation, two fundamental aspects of the CoBrA visual language. He is further recognized for his overpainting of inexpensive 19th-century works that he collected at flea markets, in series he called Modifications or Défigurations. Additionally, he has received acclaim for his work with ceramics, collage, and sculpture.

After a period in which he focused on Danish contemporary photography, he resumed painting and produced a significant number of works between 1970 and 1972. Jorn died in 1973.