Carl-Henning Pedersen

Autodidact painter, draughtsman and printmaker, founding member of the CoBRA group; born 23 Sept.1913 in Copenhagen, met the painter Else Alfelt whom he married in 1934 and inspired by her began to paint but remained self-taught; in 1937 took part in the international exhibition organized by ‘Linien’.

In 1939 made important encounter with modern art on his first trips to France and Germany, influenced by Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso; from 1941-45 he was co-editor of the Danish art review ‘Helhesten’ published his seminal article ‘Abstract Art and the Art of the Imagination’; from 1942-49 he was member of the artist group ‘Høst’ (Fall); in 1948 published his first illustrated book of his poems ‘Dream Poems’; in 1948 spent six months in Iceland where he met the painter Svavar Gudnason and the writer Halldor Laxness and produced many oil crayon drawings; from 1948 to 1951 he was a founding member of the CoBRA group and took part in many of their exhibitions, including the first CoBRA exhibition ‘International Experimental Art’ at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

In 1950 awarded the Eckersberg Medal from the Royal Danish Academy of Art; from the 1950s travelled abroad widely with Else Alfelt; in 1962 represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale; created long ceramic mural for the Angli factory in Herning, now the Herning Kunstmuseum, Denmark; in 1974 his first wife Else Alfelt died; in 1975 on a residency in Jerusalem he met Sidsel Ramson, architect and interior designer, and later photographer, who became his second wife and they settled in France; in 1976 the Carl-Henning Pedersen and Else Alfelt Museum is opened in Herning, Denmark with a large donation of his work and that of Else Alfelt.

In 1977 Pedersen and Sidsel Ramson purchased Karel Appel’s house in Burgundy which became their primary home; in 2003 his retrospective was held at the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen for his 90th birthday; died in Copenhagen on 20 February 2007.