Asger Jorn

Masterpiece series

Instead of a single artwork, we explore the person behind the work today. On occasion of Asger Jorn’s birthday, we leave no stone unturned on the great CoBrA master.

1. Born Asger Oluf Jørgensen in 1914, the artist changed his last name to ‘Jorn’ in 1945
2. Among Edward Munch, he is one of the leading Danish artists
3. Jorn assisted Kandinsky for a while before realizing that he was having trouble selling his paintings he thus left Kandinsky and studied at Fernand Léger’s Académie Contemporaine
4. He helped Le Corbusier in working for the Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux at the 1937 Paris exhibition
5. He was active in the Danish resistance movement during World War II
6. Jorn was the first person to translate Franz Kafka to Danish
7. He co-founded the avant-garde art movement CoBrA – an acronym of the city names Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam
8. Inspired by Paul Klee, he is one of the leading Abstract Expressionism artist using print, ceramics and painting as his tools
9. Asger Jorn was not active only as a painter but also as a writer on art and politics
10. He received the prestigious Guggenheim Award in 1994 but refused it and send the following telegraph to Harry F. Guggenheim – president of the Guggenheim: „Go to Hell bastard – stop- refuse prize – stop – never asked for it – stop- against all decency mix artist his will in your publicity – stop- I want public confirmation not to have participated in your ridiculous game“