NAU NUA: CARL-HENNING PEDERSEN

Animals behind the masks

Portrait of Carl-Henning Pedersen, 1986, copyright Sidsel Ramson

CoBrA was born on 8 November 1948 in Paris. It was an avant-garde artistic movement created by Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn, and Joseph Noiret. The name was coined by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home cities: Copenhagen (Co), Brussels (Br), Amsterdam (A) along with the final manifesto titled "La cause était entendue" (The cause was understood) inspired by social idealisms like Marxism or Modernism, the freedom of creating from spontaneity and experiment and the work of artists like Paul Klee and Joan Miró. I was in fact the result of the sum of three already existing groups: the Dutch group Reflex, the Danish group Høst and the Belgian Revolutionary Surrealist Group. One of the artists that became founder member of the movement was the Danish Carl-Henning Pedersen, along with his wife the artist Else Alfelt.

Carl-Henning Pedersen was born in Copenhagen in 1913 and grew up in a poor working-class home in Valby and as a young man dreamt of becoming a composer. When he was 20 he joined the International Folk High School and she met who one year later became his wife, the painter Else Alfelt. She introduced him into the visual arts developing a style close to Modernism. In 1936 they made their debut at the Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling (Artists' Autumn Exhibition). His work was abstract, influenced by cubism, so, when in 1939 he went to Paris for the first time having the chance of seeing the work of Picasso, the influence became deeper. The return trip allowed him to visit the exhibition entartete Kunst (Degenerate art) in Frankfurt organised by the Nazi German Regime in order to inflame public opinion against modernism. There he was deeply impressed by the work of Chagall, probably the stronger influence on his artistic career.

During the German occupation of Denmark, he joined the Høst group and after the war, the mentioned CoBrA movement. He developed along the years and up to his death in 2007 an art of spontaneous and colourful images inspired by the primitive folk art from all countries and times. In particular, art from the Viking Era fascinated the artist. His art is an expression of his inner passion, a sign of freedom emerging from the cultural roots which take new forms thanks to the fantasy born in the artist mind.

Carl-Henning Pedersen | 100 years Arken Museum retrospective

A selection here

Text by Juan Carlos Romero

Courtesy of Arken Museum of Modern Arts of Copenhagen