Else Alfelt, Lotti Van Der Gaag, and Defining Cobra

Home , COBRA (art movement), Jan Nieuwenhuys, Karel Appel, Linien, Piet Ouborg, Richard Mortensen

WAS THE MATTER SETTLED? ELSE ALFELT, LOTTI VAN DER GAAG, AND DEFINING COBRA

Kari Boroff

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

May 2020

Committee:

Katerina Ruedi Ray, Advisor

Mille Guldbeck

Andrew Hershberger

Kari Boroff

Katerina Ruedi Ray, Advisor

The CoBrA art movement (1948-1951) stands prominently among the few European avant-garde groups formed in the aftermath of World War II. Emphasizing international collaboration, rejecting the past, and embracing spontaneity and intuition, CoBrA artists created artworks expressing fundamental human creativity. Although the group was dominated by men, a small number of women were associated with CoBrA, two of whom continue to be the subject of debate within CoBrA scholarship to this day: the Danish painter Else Alfelt (1910-1974) and the Dutch sculptor Lotti van der Gaag (1923-1999), known as “Lotti.” In contributing to this debate, I address the work and CoBrA membership status of Alfelt and Lotti by comparing their artworks to CoBrA’s two main manifestoes, texts that together provide the clearest definition of the group’s overall ideas and theories. Alfelt, while recognized as a full CoBrA member, created structured, geometric paintings, influenced by German Expressionism and traditional Japanese art; I thus argue that her work does not fit the group’s formal aesthetic or philosophy.

Conversely Lotti, who was never asked to join CoBrA, and was rejected from exhibiting with the group, produced sculptures with rough, intuitive, and childlike forms that clearly do fit CoBrA’s ideas as presented in its two manifestoes. Examining Alfelt’s and Lotti’s individual roles within

CoBrA through the feminist art theories of Linda Nochlin and Laura Mulvey, writings by scholars and art historians, and exhibitions and collections, I focus on individual and institutional influences, and patriarchal contexts that shaped these two artists’ status in relation to CoBrA membership. In doing so, I also pose questions about who belongs in any art movement, and who gets to decide who belongs, and how all of this is defined complexly over time. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Throughout my research process I have gained a lifelong passion for the CoBrA art movement. Under the guidance of Dr. Katerina Ruedi Ray and Dr. Andrew Hershberger, I took two independent study courses on the CoBrA movement prior to writing this thesis, which helped me tremendously in my research. My deepest gratitude goes to my committee members

Dr. Ruedi Ray, Dr. Hershberger, and Professor Mille Guldbeck. It is through their insight, and motivation, that my thesis became possible. In addition, I would like to thank Professor

Guldbeck for her devoted and excellent translations of Danish texts into English. Also, with the encouragement of Dr. Ruedi Ray, I was able to visit the Nova Southeastern University Art

Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which houses the largest collection of CoBrA art in North

America. This trip was invaluable to me personally and it provided me with primary source material that was imperative to my research. In particular, I am grateful to Dr. Barbara Lynes,

Sunny Kaufman Senior Curator, and the kind staff from the NSU Art Museum for allowing me access to their archives and private collection. I also would like to express my sincere gratitude to all of the faculty members at the BGSU School of Art who have encouraged me and offered their guidance. I especially would like to thank Librarian Amy Fry, BGSU’s Electronic

Resources Coordinator, for meeting with me and helping me find sources. I would like to thank

Professor Michael Arrigo, Graduate Coordinator for the School of Art, for assisting me through this entire process. Also, I am grateful to Dr. Allie Terry-Fritsch, Dr. Rebecca Skinner-Green,

Dr. Sean Leatherbury, and Professor Ruthy Light for their encouragement. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the support of my family: my husband Jason Himes, whose patience, encouragement, and creativity continues to inspire me; and to my two stepchildren Dorian and

Jacob Himes, whose presence in my life has given me so much love and meaning. v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

IN BUT NOT IN: ELSE ALFELT ...... 8

OUT BUT NOT OUT: LOTTI VAN DER GAAG ...... 13

PATRIARCHY ...... 17

MANIFESTO ONE: LA CAUSE ÉTAIT ENTENDUE (THE MATTER WAS SETTLED) .... 22

MANIFESTO TWO: CONSTANT’S MANIFESTO ...... 26

SCHOLARS AND ART HISTORIANS ...... 33

EXHIBITIONS, COLLECTIONS, AND COLLECTORS ...... 38

CONCLUSION: WAS THE MATTER SETTLED? ...... 43

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 48

APPENDIX A: FIGURES ...... 53

INTRODUCTION

The CoBrA art movement (1948-1951) stands prominently among the few European avant-garde groups formed in the aftermath of World War II.1 The artwork that CoBrA created reflected a turbulent era in which artists longed for a new way of life.2 The group emerged in the moment when naïve optimism was essential to distancing oneself from the legacy of war, when individuals sought a better future, and when hope grew stronger that international collaboration could produce a new society.3 As an international movement, with artists representing the cities of Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam (the name CoBrA derives from the three cities’ initials), the work of CoBrA is often characterized by direct, spontaneous expression and a rebellion against the dominant culture of the bourgeoisie. Their artwork reflected a return to what they saw as an expression of the fundamental creativity present in human existence.

Taking their inspiration from children’s art, from the art of so-called “primitives,” and from art of the mentally unstable, CoBrA artists wanted to “start again like a child.”4 Although all of those influences had been explored together before, through the work of Jean Dubuffet (1901-

1985) and the German Expressionists, most notably Paul Klee (1879-1940), the work of CoBrA remained and continues to be distinctive because of the group’s international collaboration. The alliances between the artists of Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam helped strengthen the

1 There are several different ways that CoBrA has been spelled: Cobra, COBRA, and CoBrA. Adhering to its acronym, comprised of the first one or two letters of the capital cities of its members’ nations, it will be referred to as CoBrA in this thesis. 2 Willemijn Stokvis, Cobra: The History of a European Avant-Garde Movement 1948-1951 (Rotterdam: nai010 Publishers, 2017), 7. 3 Willemijn Stokvis, Cobra: An International Movement in Art after the Second World War (New York: Rizzoli International Publications Inc., 1988), book sleeve. 4 Eleanor Flomenhaft, The Roots and Development of Cobra Art (Hempstead: The Fine Arts Museum of Long Island, 1985), 33. 2 bonds between those three European cities, making CoBrA one of the most dynamic European art movements to emerge during the middle of the twentieth century.5

CoBrA was dominated by men. Of its approximately thirty-five members, twenty-six or so were men, and their membership within the group, for the most part, has not been challenged by art historians. Among the small number of women members associated with CoBrA, two notable female artists continue to be the subject of contentious debate within CoBrA scholarship to this day: the Danish painter Else Alfelt (1910-1974) and the Dutch sculptor Lotti van der Gaag

(1923-1999), known as Lotti (Figs. 1 and 2).6

Alfelt is considered by art historians, and she was also seen by leading CoBrA artists—if at times begrudgingly—as a member of the group.7 CoBrA membership of another female artist,

Sonja Ferlov Mancoba (1911-1984), has not been challenged either by members of the group, or by art historians. Ferlov Mancoba’s work is seen as CoBrA dominant in both principles and aesthetics. In addition to Alfelt and Ferlov Mancoba, two other women artists, Anneliese Hager

(1904-1997) and Madeleine Kemeny-Szemere (1906-1993), were considered as part of the group by CoBrA co-founder and leading artist, Corneille Guillaume Beverloo (1922-2010), referred to by his first name, Corneille. However, the leading CoBrA artists including Corneille—and, until recently, also art historians—have not regarded Lotti as a member.8 Corneille also did not consider as members two other women artists, Ferdina Jansen (Ferdi, 1927-1969) and Dora

Tuynman (1926-1979), but this view is also held by key CoBrA art historians as well. Neither of these two artists are even mentioned in key texts about CoBrA.9 An eighth artist, photographer

5 Flomenhaft, The Roots and Development, 3. 6 Charlotte van der Gaag chose to use her nickname “Lotti” as her artist name. 7 Jean-Clarence Lambert, Cobra, trans. Roberta Bailey (New York: Abbeville Press Inc., 1983), 64. 8 Esther Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra: Lotti van der Gaag,” WordPress, last modified April 2015, accessed March 18, 2020, https://estherschreuder.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/to-be-or-not-to-be-cobra- lotti-van-der-gaag/. 9 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 3

Henny Riemens (1928-1992), has also been acknowledged for her contribution to CoBrA, but her work is left out of all of the major CoBrA publications in the United States.10

It is only very recently that the works of all eight have been exhibited together, for the first time, in Niewe Nuances Vrouwelijke Kunstenaars in en rondom Cobra/New Nuances:

Women Artists in and Around Cobra, an exhibition of women artists associated with CoBrA at the Cobra Museum in Amstelveen, Amsterdam (henceforth called the Cobra Museum).11 While the CoBrA memberships of Ferlov Mancoba, Hager, and Kemeny-Szemere, and the non- memberships of Ferdi, Tuynman, and Riemens, do not appear, to date, to have caused any controversy, the question of Lotti today and Alfelt in earlier periods has continued to generate debate.12 This thesis is a contribution to that debate; it therefore primarily addresses the work and status of Alfelt and Lotti, asking how and why the work of these two artists was or is seen as granting, or denying, their CoBrA membership.

Although Alfelt was considered a member of CoBrA by other members of the group (if not enthusiastically, which will be discussed later) and by CoBrA art historians, I will attempt to argue that her work does not fully fit the group’s formal aesthetic or philosophy. I will also argue that Lotti’s work does fully fit these aspects of the group’s identity. However, Lotti never officially joined CoBrA, despite her interest in participating in its exhibition activity. Instead,

Lotti’s work has been only peripherally associated with the group by art historians such as Laura

Soutendijk, while other CoBrA scholars, including the leading CoBrA art historian Willemijn

Stokvis (b. 1937), who was formerly in agreement with excluding Lotti, now argue that she was

10 Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Nieuwe Nuances, Vrouwelijke Kunstenaars in en rondom Cobra/New Nuances: Women Artists in and Around Cobra (Amstelveen: Cobra Museum of Modern Art, 2019), 109. Riemens photographed many key CoBrA events but is mostly known for her relationship with Corneille. 11 See Cobra Museum of Modern Art, New Nuances. 12 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 4 undoubtedly a full member.13 This debate is still relevant today, and as recently as last year

Frieze magazine referred to it in a 2019 review of the New Nuances exhibition at the Cobra

Museum of Modern Art, a show which included Lotti’s work.14

The inclusion of Lotti’s work in the Cobra Museum’s permanent collection was the reason behind the resignation in 1999 of Cees List (1939-2014), then Director of the Cobra

Museum. The contention centered on whether or not Lotti’s work should be accepted into the

Cobra Museum’s collection. Two of CoBrA’s founding members, Constant Nieuwenhuys

(1920-2005, referred to by his first name) and Corneille, in 1998 protested against Lotti’s inclusion. List sided with Constant and Corneille and resigned after the museum nevertheless accepted Lotti’s work into the collection.15 According to Constant and Corneille, Lotti was not considered a member of the group because she did not sign their founding manifesto or exhibit with them in their two major shows: at the Stedelijk Museum in 1949, and at the Museum of

Fine Arts in Liège in 1951.16 Yet, most recently, Lotti’s work was included in the Cobra

Museum’s New Nuances six-month long exhibition, and one of her sculptures given a prominent position at the entrance of the Museum (Fig. 3). This exhibition celebrated the artwork of eight women artists, with the curators defining some of their roles only as peripheral to CoBrA, which leaves their individual status as actual members ambiguous. Although European scholars have for some decades written about the group, and there has been recent interest in CoBrA within the

United States as well, other than the above exhibition at the Cobra Museum little attention until very recently has been paid to the few women who were associated with the CoBrA group.17

13 Laura Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag (Blaricum, The Netherlands: V + K Publishing, 2003), 64 and Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 299. 14 Juliet Jacques, “Men, Step Aside: The Women of Cobra,” Frieze, no. 107, November/December 2019, last modified September 2019, accessed March 17, 2020, https://frieze.com/article/men-step-aside-women-cobra. 15 Jacques, “Men, Step Aside.” 16 Jacques, “Men, Step Aside.” 17 Stefan van Raay, foreword to New Nuances: Women Artists in and Around Cobra (Amstelveen: Cobra 5

In order to evaluate whether or not Alfelt’s and Lotti’s works demonstrate CoBrA’s aesthetic and philosophy, I will compare and contrast the two artists’ work according to the formal, methodological, and philosophical principles of the movement as presented in CoBrA’s two official manifestoes. The two manifestoes that represented CoBrA’s shared ideas can be located, first, in the relatively short 1948 declaration signed by six CoBrA founding members and titled La Cause Était Entendue (The Matter was Settled) (Figs. 4.1 and 4.2).18 However,

Constant wrote a more comprehensive manifesto a month earlier, before the founding of CoBrA, for the Dutch art collective titled the Experimental Group, and he published it in the

September/October issue of its magazine Reflex (Figs. 5.1 to 5.6).19 Although La Cause Était

Entendue (The Matter was Settled) is considered a true manifesto because it was written and signed by key members at the outset of the CoBrA group, it is not as comprehensive as

Constant’s Reflex manifesto written a month or so earlier. As Stokvis explains, “after studying three years of Cobra practice, the most complete overview of ideas and theories that emerged in this movement (and, in retrospect, there are many after all) can be found in the manifesto

Constant wrote for the Experimental Group in Holland, before Cobra was set up.”20 Thus, the two manifestoes need to be read together in order to provide a clear picture of the group’s purposes. Stokvis also acknowledges the importance of a third text that was published in two parts in issues four and six of the Cobra magazine, explaining that “The text... could be interpreted as ‘the one major Cobra manifesto’ throughout the entire history of the Cobra

Museum of Modern Art, 2019), 9-11. 18 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 118. 19 Constant (Constant Nieuwenhuys), “Manifest,” Reflex: orgaan van de experimentele groep in Holland, no. 1 (September/October 1948), accessed March 17, 2020, https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/pdf/1948_reflex_1.pdf. For the English translation see Constant (Constant Nieuwenhuys), “Manifesto,” trans. Leonard Bright, Situationist International Online, accessed March 17, 2020, https://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/presitu/manifesto.html. 20 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 118. 6 movement. The text cannot, however, be seen as a true manifesto; it is more a defense of Cobra and a drawn-out war cry against a tradition-bound civil society and its art.”21

While this third text is clearly important to the history of CoBrA, I concur with Stokvis that it is not a true manifesto. This thesis will therefore only focus on La Cause Était Entendue

(The Matter was Settled) and Constant’s Reflex manifesto. The Cobra Museum also considers the text written for the Experimental Group in Reflex magazine as “the” CoBrA manifesto when it states that:

Constant wrote the famous manifesto of the then yet to be established CoBrA movement. Later in 1948, he went to Paris with Karel Appel. This was the moment when the Experimental Group in Holland would merge with Danish and Belgian artists to become CoBrA (1948-1951), a group of artists who foregrounded intuitive and collaborative experimentation in art as significant.22

The emphasis that is placed on Constant’s Reflex manifesto by these two respected sources reinforces the need to examine this text as one of central importance to understanding CoBrA’s philosophy and work.

In addition to examining these two CoBrA manifestoes, I will also refer to two influential theoretical texts in feminist art theory: Linda Nochlin (1931-2017) and her pioneering essay titled “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” (1971); and Laura Mulvey (b.

1941) and her renowned essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975). Through these writings I hope to provide a better understanding of how patriarchal attitudes may, or may not, have impacted the individual roles of Alfelt and Lotti within CoBrA, and thus perhaps also, by extension, within the European avant-garde more generally. Alfelt, while often considered a full member of the group, often received criticism from the male artists of CoBrA. They argued that

21 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 118. 22 Cobra Museum of Modern Art, “Constant,” Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Accessed March 17, 2020, https://www.cobra-museum.nl/en/artist/constant/. 7 her work was not spontaneous enough to reflect their philosophies.23 Lotti never received recognition as a member of CoBrA from its male members, and she never fully earned the respect of the Dutch CoBrA artists, with Corneille stating ambiguously: “We will say nothing about her work, it is simply good.”24

Lastly, through this thesis I will ask what it means to be a member of an art movement, a question that can be applied to other movements in and out of the canon of art history. This is an important question as art movements often are not easily defined and are often more complicated than at first imagined. Yet, a deeper examination of a particular movement’s history can refine our understanding of it, and help to redefine the historical impact, cultural importance, and financial value that a movement has on its members’ works. By comparing the works of Alfelt and Lotti to the two CoBrA manifestoes, and by retroactively examining their roles within the group through the analyses of art historians, I hope to explore these broader questions as well.

23 Brenda Zwart, “Biographies of Selected Cobra Artists in The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra Collection,” in Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra Collection (Milano: Skira Editore S.p.A., 2017), 143. 24 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 8

IN BUT NOT IN: ELSE ALFELT

Else Alfelt was already an accomplished artist before joining CoBrA. Born in

Copenhagen, Denmark in 1910, Alfelt always wanted to be an artist. She began painting at 14 years old and was mostly self-taught, although she did attend classes at a technical school in

Copenhagen in the 1920s.25 Alfelt applied to the Royal Danish Academy of Arts and was rejected in 1927. According to Danish painter Aksel Jørgensen (1883-1957), she could “already paint just fine.”26 When asked why she never attended the Danish Academy, Alfelt explained, “I am against everything that seems inhibited and pre-conceived.”27 Developing a naturalistic style early in her career, a period characterized by portrait paintings (Fig. 6), she got introduced to the

Danish art world working as a model. It was not until 1933, at the International School in

Elsinore, Denmark, that she met her future husband, fellow artist Carl-Henning Pedersen (1913-

2007), who would remain her partner until her death in 1974. In 1937, Alfelt began painting in a non-figurative, abstract manner, characterized by rigid geometric compositions, and this would remain her dominant style (Fig. 7).28 Before they both joined CoBrA in 1948, Alfelt was, with

Pedersen, active in several Danish avant-garde art circles, such as the Surrealist-oriented groups

Linien (1934-1939) and Helhesten (1941-1944), and she was an early contributor to the latter group’s journal.29 With a strong desire to be an artist in a male-dominated art world, Alfelt refused to let society force her to paint only during the spare hours between maintaining a home

25 Claire de Dobay Rifelj, “Selected Artists’ Biographies,” in The Avant-garde Won't Give Up: Cobra and Its Legacy, ed. Alison Gingeras (New York: Blum & Poe, 2017), 193. 26 Anette Overgaard Nielsen, “The Art of Emptiness: A Study on the Japanese inspired Works by Else Alfelt,” DOCPLAYER, 2009, 12, accessed March 19, 2020, https://docplayer.dk/10232190-Skema-4-specialeaflevering-institut-for-aestetiske-fag.html. I would like to thank Mille Guldbeck for translating the Introduction and Chapter 1 of this document. 27 Overgaard Nielsen, “The Art of Emptiness,” 12. 28 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 45. 29 de Dobay Rifelj, “Selected Artists’ Biographies,” 193. 9 and looking after children, which was common during this period.30 In the mid-1930s Alfelt and

Pedersen joined other young experimental artists such as Ejler Bille (1910-2004), Henry Heerup

(1907-1993), Ferlov Mancoba, Erik Thommesen (1916-2008), and Asger Jorn (1914-1973) to form a close-knit group of Danish artists who often met to discuss art, current events, and to critique each other’s work.31 She had her debut in the 1936 annual Artists’ Autumn Exhibition in Copenhagen where she exhibited two of her portraits, before shifting her style dramatically to large, abstract canvases with bright planes of saturated colors and bold lines (Fig. 8).32 In 1941,

Alfelt had her first solo exhibition in Copenhagen, and she later participated in the group exhibition called 13 Artists in a Tent in a northern Copenhagen park where she sold one of her paintings to the art collector Elise Johansen.33 It is also notable that after CoBrA disbanded in

1951, she had her first major commission in 1957 at a school north of Copenhagen, and more commissions followed soon thereafter. These accomplishments are significant to mention because they emphasize Alfelt’s independent artistic achievements and demonstrate that she was a recognized artist, both pre-and post-CoBrA.

Alfelt’s affiliation with the Danish experimental artists headed by Jorn led to her active participation in the dialogues that preceded the founding of CoBrA, and in subsequent exhibitions with the group through 1951 as a devoted member of its Danish component.34

Although the Danish experimental artists’ group was very active in Denmark, Jorn wanted to establish an international magazine and explore the possibilities of international cooperation. He

30 Hans Edvard Nørregård-Nielsen, “Else Alfelt” in Carl-Henning Pedersen og Else Alfelts Museum (Herning, Denmark: Carl-Henning Pedersen og Else Alfelts Museum, 1976), 27. 31 Zwart, “Biographies of Selected Cobra Artists,” 143. 32 de Dobay Rifelj, “Selected Artists’ Biographies,” 193. 33 Lotte Korshøj, “Biography: Else Alfelt 1910-1974,” Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum, accessed March 18, 2020, https://chpeamuseum.dk/UserFiles/Om%20museet/Else%20Alfelt/LARS_EA_Katalog_UK.pdf, 96. 34 de Dobay Rifelj, “Selected Artists’ Biographies,” 193. 10 was eager to collaborate as he saw that “the Danish painters had important experiences to contribute to the European environment.”35 Representing the Danish group, Jorn went to Paris to meet with representatives from Belgium and the Netherlands to discuss the formation of a new art group, which became known as CoBrA. Before the meeting, Jorn wrote a manifesto about future international collaboration that Alfelt signed, along with Pedersen, Egill Jacobsen (1910-

1998), Bille, Jorn, Dahlmann Olsen (1915-1993), and Thommesen.36 Although the members of the Danish group were already enjoying recognition in their home country, they were among the approximately thirty-five persons who formed CoBrA, and all of them aimed to strengthen the bonds between the Danish, Dutch, and Belgian groups (Fig. 9).37

Although Alfelt was considered as a full member of the group from the beginning, along with Pedersen, her artwork never completely fit in with the dominant CoBrA aesthetic or work method. Typically, CoBrA members identified with spontaneous forms of expression and with inclusions of experimental fantasy creatures (Figs. 10 to 13).38 They sought free, intuitive creation based on imagination, expressed unmethodically and directly. In contrast, Alfelt worked with rhythmic lines and forms derived from Scandinavian landscape motifs. She regarded mountains as a transition between the real and the imaginary with their peaks as spiritual elements between heaven and earth.39 Alfelt was also influenced by traditional Japanese and Chinese painting, which often expressed the cosmos, the self, and enlightenment.40 The composition of Alfelt’s work appeared as clear and precise; and for this, some of the other

CoBrA artists criticized her. They believed that her work did not reflect the spontaneous,

35 Per Hovdenakk, Danish Art 1930-50 (Valbygaardsvej: Borgen Publishers, 1999), 63. 36 Korshøj, “Biography: Else Alfelt 1910-1974,” 99. 37 Flomenhaft, The Roots and Development, 3. 38 Zwart, “Biographies of Selected Cobra Artists,” 143. 39 Zwart, “Biographies of Selected Cobra Artists,” 143. 40 Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum, “Introduction to Else Alfelt (1910-1974),” Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum, accessed March 18, 2020, https://chpeamuseum.dk/else-alfelt-(1).aspx. 11 expressive philosophy and intuitive working method that grounded the group. In sum, they viewed her work as too structured and abstract.41

This view was particularly true for the Dutch CoBrA members.42 Belgian members also became unsympathetic. In the second CoBrA exhibition in 1949 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in

Brussels, titled La Fin et Les Moyens (The end and the means), organized by the CoBrA Belgian contingent, Alfelt’s participation created some difficulties because her work seemed not spontaneous enough compared to the rest of the group.43 However, she did experiment with creative spontaneity, stating that when creating a picture: “The line is not aimed for,” “I am subject to my rhythm,” and “The line is given—I do not correct.”44 Nevertheless, although her methods did include an intuitive process, the formal elements of her work still did not possess the same unconstrained qualities—wild brushstrokes in painting and gestural marks in sculpture—of the other members of the group.

Instead, Alfelt related to Kandinsky’s ideas about the “inner necessity” and mysticism that he wrote about in Concerning the Spiritual in Art.45 The rhythmic patterns in Kandinsky’s work can also be found in Alfelt’s paintings (Figs. 14 and 15). Additionally, her paintings, as described by Stokvis, “developed in a line that would prevent [them] from ever really being

‘experimental fantasy art’, although [they] sometimes came close.”46 This perception was also supported by Alfelt’s husband and founding CoBrA member, Pedersen, who stated:

In a way she is a respected member of the group that later became known as the Cobra group. But it is the painting of fairy tales and disguise in Cobra, that takes priority, there has never been any respect for the influence of Japanese and Chinese painting, which has

41 Zwart, “Biographies of Selected Cobra Artists,” 143. 42 Lambert, Cobra, 64. 43 Lambert, Cobra, 110-111. 44 Overgaard Nielsen, “The Art of Emptiness,” 15. 45 Overgaard Nielsen, “The Art of Emptiness,” 10-12. 46 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 22. 12

been Else’s biggest interest. So, whenever Cobra holds an exhibition, she is probably represented with only one or two paintings.47

Alfelt’s paintings generally emphasize slightly rigid, geometric forms, which develop into abstract, crystalline landscapes. Her mountains, perhaps her most popular subjects, pierce the top of the picture planes and her carefully chosen colors compliment all of her forms, creating sophisticated compositions within a fixed order.48 Yet, despite the criticism from other

CoBrA members, Alfelt kept her unique style throughout the short history of the movement, and afterwards. In the male-dominated CoBrA, she maintained a firm, though independent position within the group. As poet Edouard Jaguer (1924-2006), who was closely involved with CoBrA, stated: Alfelt was “not a lamb in the werewolf’s den.”49

47 Overgaard Nielsen, “The Art of Emptiness,” 8. 48 Cobra Museum of Modern Art, New Nuances, 25. 49 Cobra Museum of Modern Art, New Nuances, 25. 13

OUT BUT NOT OUT: LOTTI VAN DER GAAG

Another notable female artist, Lotti van der Gaag, was among the very few women associated with CoBrA. Born in The Hague, the Netherlands, in 1923, Charlotte “Lotti” van der

Gaag’s official introduction to the world of art came in 1946 at the age of 23 through Delft artist

Bram Bogart (1921-2012). However, she had already been exploring the medium of painting and drawing in her early life.50 Together with Bogart, Lotti visited art museums where she admired famous masters such as Rembrandt and van Gogh, with the latter being the most impressive to her.51 Bogart also showed Lotti his art books, and together they created small sculptures from the clay that he got from his neighbor, the sculptor Hans Melis (1925-1978).52

Working entirely from her imagination in 1948, Lotti showed the sculptures that she had made with Bogart to Livinus van der Bundt (1909-1979), director of the Free Academy in The Hague

(Fig. 16). Van der Bundt was so impressed with Lotti’s work—viewing her as a talented, promising artist with great perseverance, but also noting her reluctance to work with other students—that he set her up in the attic of the Free Academy so that she could concentrate completely on making her art.53

After Lotti’s and Bogart’s relationship ended in 1948, Lotti decided to devote herself entirely to art. It was during this period that she became most productive, creating around 150 sculptures from clay, with Livinus encouraging her to use her own fantasies in her work instead of traditional forms. As she recalled: “He said, you should not be ashamed of yourself, you must do everything that makes sense to you, even if you make images with three heads, six breasts,

50 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 57-58. 51 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 58. 52 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 58. 53 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 58. 14 and five arms.”54 After spending a year at the Free Academy, Lotti continued making sculptures and in 1950 she began to include hollowed-out sections in her images, creating space and emptiness, qualities which would later become a major characteristic of her work (Fig. 17).

Over the next few years, Lotti had two more exhibitions, one in June 1950 at the coastal hall Loujetsky in The Hague, and the second at the end of 1950 at the Amsterdam Gallery.55 She was also included in the group exhibition De duivel in de beeldende kunst (the Devil in the

Visual Arts) at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1952. Unlike the more formally structured work of Alfelt, Lotti’s sculptures generally contain childlike forms in clay and bronze, depicting fantastic creatures from her own imagination (Figs. 18 and 19). Additionally, her coarse handling of materials gave her work a worn, rough, and natural character.56 Focusing mainly on sculpting imaginary creatures, she worked in a spontaneous manner, creating daring, open constructions, sometimes cast in bronze.57

Unlike the more controlled and geometric work of Alfelt, Lotti’s intuitive and expressive three-dimensional work very early on reflected the philosophies and aesthetics that underpinned the CoBrA group. This was true even though it was not until the end of 1950, less than a year before CoBrA disbanded, that Lotti decided to go to Paris to meet the sculptors from the

Exhibition of 13 Sculptors from Paris. There, for the first time, she discussed ideas and interacted with some of CoBrA’s members.58 Again, it is important to understand that, similar to

Alfelt, Lotti was already an established artist before her association with CoBrA. Moreover, she

54 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 58. 55 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 63. 56 Ludo van Halem, ed., Cobra: The Colour of Freedom (Rotterdam: nai Publishers, 2003), 195. 57 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 299. 58 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 60-61. 15 had already explored thorough her artwork ideas and working methods like those of CoBrA before she ever met any members of the group.

Lotti holds a different position within CoBrA compared to Alfelt and Ferlov Mancoba, both of whom were formally included within the movement. Lotti was never officially asked to join the group, she never exhibited with them, and she never contributed to their publications.

However, CoBrA scholars such as Willemijn Stokvis have referred to Lotti as a full CoBrA member, not only because of her association with the group but also because her work shared the same visual language.59

In late 1950, during her stay in Paris, Lotti studied for free under Ossip Zadkine (1888-

1967), a Russian-born French artist, before connecting with one of the founding Dutch CoBrA artists, Corneille.60 Corneille invited Lotti to visit his studio at Rue Santeuil, a frequent meeting place for Dutch artists and writers.61 There, at first, Lotti borrowed a studio space from an artist who was on vacation for a few weeks, until Corneille moved into the space next door to Karel

Appel (1921-2006), another founding Dutch CoBrA artist. Lotti then took over Corneille’s old studio space and permanently moved into Rue Santeuil where she interacted and exchanged ideas with CoBrA members and the other artists working there.62

During her time at Rue Santeuil, while independently establishing contact with Parisian galleries who were interested in her work, Lotti also did her best to create opportunities for exhibitions for her housemates.63 However, her housemates, whether CoBrA members or independent artists, made little effort to involve Lotti in their activities. Around 1950, the

59 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 299. 60 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 61 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 63. 62 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 63-64. 63 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 64. 16 contacts that Appel and Corneille made in Paris were initially primarily with Dutch artists living in Paris.64 Yet, Appel and Corneille specifically advised against including Lotti in some gallery exhibits, because they said it would not benefit her career.65 Reacting to this, Lotti stated: “I didn’t mind. I wasn’t very angry about it because I thought my time would come.” She went on to state that although she had developed a somewhat friendly association with Appel, Corneille

“always saw me as his little neighbor.”66

64 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 264. 65 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 64. 66 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 17

PATRIARCHY

Although their true intentions remain unclear, the attitudes that some of the male artists of CoBrA had toward Alfelt and Lotti could be described as oppositional and antagonistic. As mentioned earlier, Alfelt often received criticism from the other members of the group because they did not see her work as spontaneous enough to fit CoBrA’s philosophy and aesthetic.

Additionally, tension existed between Alfelt and Jorn in 1950 after Alfelt received the highly competitive New Carlsberg travel grant to Rome. Alfelt became the first abstract artist from

Denmark to receive this travel grant, which paid for half a year’s study in Italy.67 Jorn wrote a letter critical of this decision that was to be published in the newspaper Politiken, but the paper refused to print it.68 This action led to a falling out between Jorn, Alfelt, and Pedersen, affecting the latter’s future collaborations with CoBrA.69 Yet, Alfelt’s work was clearly considered to be part of CoBrA by the French poet Edouard Jaguer, who in 1950 published a monograph on

Alfelt’s work as part of the CoBrA Library series.70

Lotti received similar negative treatment from the group, except that her difficult experiences were primarily with the leading Dutch members of CoBrA. Not only did Appel and

Corneille advise against her inclusion in gallery exhibits, she was never asked to take part in any of CoBrA’s final exhibitions in 1950 and 1951. Corneille, who strongly defended his actions against Lotti, explained that she had asked to participate in the last CoBrA exhibition in Liège in

1951, but he had refused.71 Also, when confronted with the idea that she was not included because she was a woman, he mentioned all of the women that were valued CoBrA members,

67 Korshøj, “Biography,” 100. 68 Overgaard Nielsen, “The Art of Emptiness,” 8. 69 Overgaard Nielsen, “The Art of Emptiness,” 8. 70 Korshøj, “Biography,” 100. 71 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 18 such as Hager, Ferlov Mancoba, Alfelt, and Szemere-Kemeny.72 Although Lotti’s artwork shared the same CoBrA language, and she worked in a similar manner and with the same philosophies, due to these limited statements by leading CoBrA artists about her, it is unclear why Lotti was never accepted as a member of CoBrA.

To better understand the reasons behind these sentiments, it seems relevant to examine two influential theoretical texts in feminist art theory: Linda Nochlin’s pioneering essay, “Why

Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” (1971), and Laura Mulvey’s similarly seminal text

“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975). Nochlin, an American feminist art historian, explains how systemic social, cultural, and political barriers have barred women from partaking in the art world in numerous ways. She argues that women have been kept out of the art world not because there is a dominant male style that is superior to a female style, but because women were kept out of the art institutions that credentialed artists—the academies and exhibition venues of art. Women were therefore excluded from the art market—the processes associated with art production, circulation, reception and ownership.73

Additionally, Nochlin argues that those artists considered great artists also possess the quality of “Genius.”74 Men have long dominated the world of art, and therefore “Genius” is associated with male artists, whether subconsciously or not. Nochlin suggests that art historians, therefore, need to look back at the history of art to find the institutional roadblocks that have prevented women from climbing to the top of the art world ladder. For example, women were prohibited from attending life drawing sessions with nude models, although they were allowed to

72 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 73 Linda Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” in Women, Art, and Power (New York: Harper & Row Publishers Inc., 1988), 161-164. 74 Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” 153. 19 pose as nude models themselves.75 This restriction placed limitations on the subject matter that women were able to paint, leading them toward areas such as landscape and still life, which were lower on the hierarchical scale of subject matter appreciated as art.76 With these limitations, female artists were never given the same opportunities as male artists, as the drawing of the nude was considered to be an essential artistic skill from the Renaissance through the 19th century.

Nochlin explains:

But in actuality, as we all know, things as they are and as they have been, in the arts as in a hundred other areas, are stultifying, oppressive, and discouraging to all those, women among them, who did not have the good fortune to be born white, preferably middle class and above all, male. The fault lies not in our stars, our hormones, our menstrual cycles, or our empty internal spaces, but in our institutions and our education.77

Although Nochlin acknowledges that there have indeed been great women artists throughout history, she insists that there has not been nearly enough scholarship about them. This is also why writing this particular thesis is important. Investigating how CoBrA members may have reproduced the same systemic barriers that Nochlin identified may shed light on the institutional obstacles limiting the number of women artists forming part of one of the 20th century’s most important avant-garde movements.

In her seminal essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Mulvey, a British feminist film theorist, draws on the writings of French psychoanalyst theorist Jacques Lacan to explain the function of women in the patriarchal unconscious. While Nochlin examines visible patriarchal institutional structures, Mulvey examines often unspoken, invisible patriarchal conventions that exclude women. According to Mulvey, women in a patriarchal symbolic

75 Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” 158-164. 76 Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” 160. 77 Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” 150. 20 order—the order of both explicit laws and intuitively understood linguistic and societal ideologies—are objects, not agents of meaning. She states:

Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as a signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer, not maker, of meaning.78

Women cannot survive as creators in the patriarchal, phallocentric symbolic order. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, Mulvey suggests that instead, because of their lack of a phallus, women only exist to symbolize the castration threat and to raise their children into the symbolic order, or to reproduce it.79 Once this has been achieved, their role in the process and meaning of the symbolic order is at an end. Yet, “woman” stands as a linchpin to the entire system. As Mulvey argues: “it is her lack that produces the phallus as a symbolic presence, it is her desire to make good the lack that the phallus signifies.”80

Although Mulvey’s essay addresses cinematic images, her arguments above can also be related to the two CoBrA female artists in question here. In her argument, Mulvey implies that women are subconsciously thought of only as representing rather than creating meaning, and their lack of a phallus gives authority to man’s possession of such, along with power and status.81

Mulvey’s theory of patriarchal culture is that it is systemic and rests on mostly subconscious structures. Jorn’s, Constant’s, and Corneille’s control of Alfelt’s and Lotti’s institutional recognition—either through limited exhibition participation (Alfelt), or any access at all

(Lotti)—resonates with Nochlin’s ideas of “roadblocks.” The lack of CoBrA’s leaders’ explicit comments and/or confessions about the sidelining of Alfelt, and the exclusion of Lotti, connects

78 Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen, Volume 16, Issue 3 (Autumn 1975): 15, accessed March 18, 2020, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/feminism/mulvey.pdf. 79 Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” 14. 80 Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” 14. 81 Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” 15. 21 to Mulvey’s assertion that patriarchal conventions often operate invisibly and/or unconsciously.

Both Alfelt and Lotti, if to different extents, seem to have been viewed only as bearers of meaning who could never be as significant as their male counterparts.

MANIFESTO ONE: LA CAUSE ÉTAIT ENTENDUE (THE MATTER WAS SETTLED)

The official, if short CoBrA manifesto of November 1948, La Cause Était Entendue (The

Matter was Settled), presented the six signatories’ opposition to the Surrealist manifesto, titled

La Cause est Entendue (The Matter is Settled), written on July 1, 1947, by the French and

Belgian Revolutionary Surrealist Group.82 The six members who signed the CoBrA manifesto included Jorn representing the Danes, Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret representing the

Belgians, and Constant, Corneille and Appel representing the Dutch. No women acted as signatories. This CoBrA manifesto, penned by Dotremont (1922-1979), represented the idea that together the group founded a common living, working, and thinking environment.83 The official meeting to create the manifesto took place at the Café de l’Hotel Notre-Dame in Paris, where the six male artists gathered to discuss the situation of the avant-garde in their own countries, as well as the possibilities of an international collaboration to reinforce the growing bonds between the

Belgian, Danish, and Dutch groups.84 Corneille recalled:

Cobra was born in effervescence, fervor. But the evening Cobra was born does not differentiate itself in my memory from other meetings in the café or elsewhere on the previous days. Only, Christian took a bit of paper and started to write quickly at the corner of the table La Cause Était Entendue (The Matter was Settled), which we had all approved. We were worn out with the discussions we’d been having, which seemed to us to be going nowhere.85

This nonetheless momentous event sparked the emergence of CoBrA, whose founding members all had the same desire to express themselves spontaneously, to work together, and to shun all theories.86 The members of the fledgling CoBrA had been frustrated with the French

Surrealist group because they felt the latter had too many interests and ideas with no clear

82 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 118. 83 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 116-117. 84 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 117. 85 Lambert, Cobra, 24. 86 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 117-118. 23 direction, and they felt that the only way to advance international activity was through “An organic, experimental collaboration that avoids all sterile, dogmatic theory.”87 CoBrA wanted to convey that although they had once agreed with the French Revolutionary Surrealists’ artistic philosophy, they no longer did so. Their manifesto is short and brief, declaring the importance of collaboration that refuses to embrace an artificial theoretical position or rigid concepts. It states, “We have been able to establish that our way of life, of working and feeling is the same.

On the practical level we understand one another and refuse to enlist under any artificial theoretical unit.”88 It affirms that members will work together in their sense of the word, calling on artists from any country, whatever their nationality. The three major themes of the manifesto therefore comprise the rejection of Surrealism, the desire for international collaboration, and the promotion of anti-dogmatism. Signed by the six founding members, this document established the newly formed group, with Dotremont naming the group CoBrA, based on the initials of three capital cities associated with the group a few days later.89

When examining the work of Alfelt and Lotti in relation to the first theme in La Cause

Était Entendue, it is important to note that in contrast to CoBrA’s rejection of Surrealism, both

Alfelt’s and Lotti’s artwork was rooted in Surrealism. As already mentioned, before CoBrA,

Alfelt got involved in Linien, a group inspired by both abstraction and Surrealism.90 Although this group later abandoned Surrealism for a new spontaneous mode of expression, Alfelt grounded her early work in Surrealism. Indeed, the title of one of Alfelt’s early paintings included in the 1937 Artists’ Autumn Exhibition in Copenhagen revealed her interest in concepts

87 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 117. 88 Hovdenakk, Danish Art, 71. 89 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 117. 90 de Dobay Rifelj, “Selected Artists’ Biographies,” 193. 24 central to Surrealism: Surrealist Composition: Dream Pictures.91 Likewise, Lotti studied under the Dutch artist Livinus van de Bundt (1909-1979) who had a background in Surrealism.92

Livinus taught Lotti to use a free conception of art, where chance was assigned an important role in the creative process. According to art historian Laura Soutendijk, “Livinus’s Surrealist background undoubtedly influenced Lotti.”93 Although both Alfelt’s and Lotti’s background in art was rooted in Surrealism, it is important to acknowledge that the work of many CoBrA members was also grounded in Surrealism. For instance, notable Danish CoBrA artists such as

Jorn, Jacobsen, Bille, Richard Mortensen (1910-1993), Pedersen, Heerup, and Ferlov Mancoba were all part of Linien, and were influenced by Surrealism at the outset of that group.94

Emphasizing the need for collaboration, the CoBrA manifesto’s second theme called upon “all artists, whatever their nationality, who can work, work in our sense of the word.”95

Alfelt, whose work did not—as already noted—appear to represent to the CoBrA group either its ideas, forms, or working methods, was nevertheless accepted, if begrudgingly, into the group.

On the other hand, Lotti, who worked alongside CoBrA artists, and whose work reflected their ideas and aesthetics, was neither accepted as an official member nor ever asked to join the group as an official member, despite helping some CoBrA members get exhibitions.96 Despite this, and her contacts with Appel and Corneille at the studio in Rue Santeuil, Lotti never received an invitation to exhibit with CoBrA; as noted earlier, Corneille stated that she did ask him to take

91 Korshøj, “Biography,” 93. 92 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 58. 93 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 58. 94 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 15. 95 Hovdenakk, Danish Art, 71. 96 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 25 part in the 1951 CoBrA exhibition in Liège, but he refused.97 According to Corneille, CoBrA was “not a salon.”98

Since his statement seems unclear, it is imperative to understand the definition of “salon.”

If Corneille was referring to a salon as “a hall for exhibition of art”, similar to a gallery or a museum, he might be suggesting that CoBrA members were selective in who they let into their group.99 In that way, they did not accept just anyone who wanted to exhibit with them, even if the artist’s work reflected CoBrA’s philosophies and aesthetics. Lotti’s desire to be a collaborative member of the group could thus be categorically denied. This, however, makes a mockery of the group’s claim that the members would work together collaboratively, and bring together various artists from any country who worked in the group’s experimental manner.

97 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 98 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 99 Tate, “Art Term: Salon,” Tate, accessed March 18, 2020, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/salon. 26

MANIFESTO TWO: CONSTANT’S MANIFESTO

The manifesto La Cause Était Entendue (The Matter was Settled) is brief and cannot provide a comprehensive and clear summary of CoBrA’s intentions as a group. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the second, even if chronologically earlier, CoBrA manifesto, published in the September/October 1948 issue of Reflex magazine. Written by Constant, it will be referred to as Constant’s manifesto. With 1,000 copies printed, it reflects the post-World War II era of profound political, social, and cultural changes.100 It is a long, dense text with interconnected and repeated themes that Constant sees as responding to the dissolution of “Western Classical

Culture,” leading to a need for both social evolution and spiritual revolution, including in art.101

As I have argued earlier, concurring with Willemijn Stokvis, the length and complexity of this text provides the broader context for, and is essential to an understanding of the short

CoBrA manifesto of November 1948, and all subsequent activities of the CoBrA group. Before

Constant’s manifesto was written and before the founding of CoBrA, Constant had already been in contact with Dotremont and Jorn. Jorn in particular inspired Constant to organize The Dutch

Experimental Group, along with the associated periodical, Reflex. Author Eleanor Flomenhaft

(b. 1933) in The Roots and Development of Cobra Art also affirms the importance of this manifesto, explaining that, “The lead article of the first issue was the Experimentalists’ manifesto composed by Constant. It clearly adumbrated the Cobra aims.”102 Adding to the importance of this text, author Claire de Dobay Rifelj claims that, “It was thanks to Constant— one of Cobra’s founding members and foremost theorists—that the group acquired its manifesto.”103

100 Lambert, Cobra, 98. 101 Constant, “Manifesto.” 102 Flomenhaft, The Roots and Development, 147. 103 de Dobay Rifelj, “Selected Artists’ Biographies,”197. 27

The first, and repetitive, theme in Constant’s manifesto focuses on the rejection of the past, including most past art movements. In response to the chaos and disillusionment of the aftermath of World War II, Constant hoped to “destroy the last remnants of an empty irksome aesthetic, arousing the creative instincts still slumbering unconscious in the human mind.”104 He explained how such outmoded art had previously depended on the wealthy for its survival, and that all of the previous art “isms” tried to move beyond bourgeois culture but became bogged down by the very social environments from which they sprung, always circling back to reaffirm their bourgeois origins and aesthetics.105

The second, related theme of Constant’s manifesto is that artists need to rise above a now defunct, elite bourgeois culture in order to freely explore art for its raw energy, free from class structures.106 He states:

Together with the class society from which it emerged, this culture of the individual is faced by destruction too, as the former’s institutions, kept alive artificially, offer no further opportunities for the creative imagination and only impede the free expression of human vitality.107

Art and creativity had been subjugated by the influence of the wealthy, and art had also depended on the wealthy, or ruling class, for its very survival. Constant considers formalism a part of a sterile convention of art led by the bourgeois class.108 This class system had stripped individuality from art, leaving its creative ground barren. He describes instead a new era in which artistic freedom can be won from the most primary sources of life.109 In particular, he

104 Constant, “Manifesto.” 105 Constant, “Manifesto.” 106 Constant, “Manifesto.” 107 Constant, “Manifesto.” 108 Constant, “Manifesto.” 109 Constant, “Manifesto.” 28 regards children and so-called “primitives” as not yet indoctrinated with preconceived notions of beauty, who in their art instead experience and represent the world more purely.110

This connects to a third theme of the manifesto, that of a “people’s art” in which the observer shares in the process of generating the essence of art as much as the artist.111 Constant claims that “A people’s art is a form of expression nourished only by a natural and therefore general urge to expression.”112 He sees the expressive qualities of art created by artists intent on a people’s art as only suggestive, with viewers playing key roles in the interpretation of meaning.

He calls this “suggestive art,” a “living” entity because each viewer is constantly projecting his own unconscious ideas onto the artwork. The art viewer no longer maintains a passive role, but instead becomes a part of the interpretive process, creating a new and fantastic way of seeing.113

As a fourth theme, Constant promotes through such a people’s art what he sees as post-

World War II culture’s urgent need for vital expression, and he defines it as sustained by a natural collective urge to create and communicate. He calls such a communal creative energy

“the people’s genius.”114 Finally, perhaps the most expressive proclamation from Constant’s in- depth manifesto, providing a concrete and powerful set of images for CoBrA’s idea of creative energy, is that “A painting is not a composition of color and line but an animal, a night, a scream, a human being, or all of these things together.”115

When examining how Constant’s manifesto themes above might apply to Alfelt’s artwork, the connections are not easy to see. For example, although Alfelt worked in a free, intuitive form of expression, creating images of mountains and landscapes without preconception

110 Constant, “Manifesto.” 111 Constant, “Manifesto.” 112 Constant, “Manifesto.” 113 Constant, “Manifesto.” 114 Constant, “Manifesto.” 115 Constant, “Manifesto.” 29 from her imagination, neither her work method nor her aesthetic appears as spontaneous or child-like (free of the influence of previous art movements) as that idealized in Constant’s manifesto. Instead, her process is and especially appears more methodical. While its beginning is intuitive, the works themselves are characterized by clear and precisely shaped forms and structured compositions, alluding to historical influences such as those from Kandinsky,

Expressionism, and even Futurism. This is all evident in her painting titled Points Reaching for the Sky (1949), a work that features pointed, abstract mountains that pierce through the clouds

(Fig. 20). Even though Alfelt laid out the main lines of paintings intuitively, she used a fixed order to build up her compositions, drawing the contours with pencil before coloring them in.116

These differences grow even more noticeable when her work gets compared to artwork by leading CoBrA members, perhaps most importantly to five artworks juxtaposed with

Constant’s manifesto, including by Constant, Jan Nieuwenhuys, Appel, and Jorn.117 Although it remains unclear whether or not these artworks were meant directly to illustrate Constant’s text, their correspondence is implied and is therefore worth addressing. The two drawings by

Constant and Niewenhuys appear gestural and mysterious, with figures that seem naïve (Figs. 21 and 22). Constant’s drawing includes an array of unidentifiable figures and shapes that appear expressive and childlike. Unlike Alfelt’s Points Reaching for the Sky of the same period as the manifesto, characterized by clear subject matter (landscape) and abstract geometric composition

(overlapping triangular forms) the subjects in Constant’s drawing are not clearly defined, spontaneously spreading out across the picture plane and with no fixed compositional order.

Similarly, Jan Niewenhuys’ drawing includes a figure that appears to have been constructed in a

116 Cobra Museum of Modern Art, New Nuances, 25. 117 Constant, “Manifest.”

30 naïve manner from the artist’s own imagination. The creature-like figure has six appendages and seems to be in motion, reaching out toward the edges of the picture plane.

While Constant and Niewenhuys’ works embody more spontaneous, dramatic, and childlike qualities, and their subject matter and composition resonate with themes from

Constant’s manifesto, the composition of Alfelt’s Points Reaching for the Sky appears more methodical, geometric, and abstract, and the brush strokes more deliberately placed. Consistent with Points Reaching for the Sky, an earlier painting by Alfelt entitled The Blasted Bridge (1946)

(Fig. 23), also does not contain any imaginary creatures or mysterious figures typical of other

CoBrA member’s work. Instead, its composition is more abstract and structured. Each colorful brushstroke appears deliberate and controlled rather than impulsive. Overall, the strokes of color do not overlap one another, but remain precisely placed across the picture plane, creating an ordered composition. In comparison, the drawing in Reflex magazine by Appel appears childlike and playful (Fig. 24). The large, imaginative creatures express simplicity in form, and their bold outlines show irregularities in thicknesses.118 Again, when comparing Appel’s drawing to

Alfelt’s painting of the same period, Appel’s appears more childlike and naïve than Alfelt’s sophisticated and methodical canvases.

As noted earlier, the formal composition of Alfelt’s work, its rhythmic lines and forms, often led other CoBrA members, including Pedersen, to place her outside of CoBrA.119 This clarity of structure makes it more difficult for the observer to share in the creative process of interpreting meaning. For example, Alfelt’s paintings of mountains seem so precisely constructed compositionally that open-ended suggestion, and thus fluid interpretation, is mostly lost. Although Alfelt did create paintings of mountains from her own imagination, as she had not

118 Constant, “Manifest.” 119 Nørregård-Nielsen, “Else Alfelt,” 27. 31 yet seen mountains in person before, their forms remained more abstract and structured than exploratory and expressive.120 It was not until after World War II ended in 1945, and travel was permitted again, that she saw mountains for the first time in Lapland, Finland.121 Working methodically, Alfelt would often cover her paintings in white paint to make “light burst out from within,” as she did not always close her colors in with an outline (Fig. 25).122 Thus, although

Alfelt was considered a full member of CoBrA, the subject matter, composition, and creative method of her work contrasts with the overall philosophies and aesthetics of the group as described in Constant’s manifesto. Aesthetically and in terms of processes, her works do not fit in with the rest of the groups’ creations.

When examining how Lotti’s artwork relates to Constant’s manifesto, it is much easier to argue that it follows both the work methods and aesthetics that Constant describes. His emphasis on intuitive working methods, similar to those of children’s art and working from creative instincts in the unconscious mind, can be seen in Lotti’s sculptures of fantastic, imaginary creatures that appear both childlike and unpremeditated. For example, her sculpture titled

Hommage Henry Moore (l’Homme avec laye Bouche, 1949) (Fig. 26), features a disfigured, humanlike figure with twisted arms and legs and a deformed face. Childlike and odd, this sculpture depicts a figure seemingly sprung from Lotti’s imagination. It suggests that Lotti did not view beauty in the same way as inherited bourgeois art culture viewed beauty, an approach quite evident not only in this but also in her other sculptures. For example, nothing in her anthropomorphic creatures in Hommage Henry Moore or other work of the period refers to the true-to-life depiction of the human body of traditional “realism,” or to the figuration of

120 Nørregård-Nielsen, “Else Alfelt,” 27-28. 121 Zwart, “Biographies of Selected Cobra Artists,” 143. 122 Nørregård-Nielsen, “Else Alfelt,” 28. 32

Surrealism, or to the geometric structuring of Expressionism, Suprematism, and Futurism.123

Her roughly formed figures often have animal features mixed with human characteristics, as well as plant forms. Another example, her sculpture titled Staande Figuur (1949) (Fig. 27), features a humanlike female figure who is shown standing. The figure’s roughly formed body appears disproportionate and her face distorted. Although this sculpture resembles a female body, it is not a realistic depiction of a woman. Instead of the material of this and her contemporaneous sculptures being carefully crafted to form a smooth finish, she scratched over the surface with clay and made deep, gestural marks in the material with sharp objects.124

Working from her own instincts, Lotti created work from her inner world, experimenting with a wide arsenal of forms made entirely from her imagination. Unlike Alfelt’s artwork, the working methods and formal characteristics of Lotti’s sculptures echo the artwork that is featured next to Constant’s manifesto, especially that of Constant, Niewenhuys, and Jorn. The imaginary, childlike creatures depicted by these artists seem quite similar to Lotti’s distorted figures. When such form is less than “perfect,” such as in Lotti’s art, the viewer can, at least according to Constant’s manifesto, become more easily part of the creative process, filling in the so-called “gaps” that have been suggested by the artist. Soutendijk recognizes this aspect of

Lotti’s work and thus affirms her importance as one of the most innovative Dutch sculptors of the 20th century, stating that Lotti “goes against traditions in Western art, working from the same primal source from 1949 on which Cobra artists were working.”125 As Lotti herself stated, a statement that could easily have come from Constant himself, “My images could be washed up of the demonic sea.”126

123 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 59. 124 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 58-59. 125 Soutendijk, Lotti van der Gaag, 60.

SCHOLARS AND ART HISTORIANS

In addition to examining the degree to which the work of Alfelt and Lotti conformed to the two main CoBrA manifestoes, it is important also to analyze the key texts that have been written by art historians, scholars, and curators about how these two artists related to the group.

In examining some of the leading authorities’ published works about CoBrA in English, Danish, and Dutch, it is clear that Alfelt, despite all of her differences from the group, was considered a full member of CoBrA whereas this was not, with some exceptions, the case for Lotti.

Historians and curators writing about Alfelt all recognize her as a CoBrA member, yet most express some reservations about her work fitting with the group. One of the earliest book- length CoBrA publications in English that mentions her is Jean-Clarence Lambert’s 1983 volume titled Cobra. In it, Alfelt is featured in the section on “Cobra before Cobra: Copenhagen,” and in the section “The Collective Adventure.”127 According to Lambert, “In the Cobra perspective,

Else Alfelt’s painting did not escape without a certain degree of criticism, particularly from the

Dutch, who found her too abstract...”128 In Eleanor Flomenhaft’s 1985 book, The Roots and

Development of Cobra Art, Alfelt is mentioned several times throughout the sections on

“Pioneers of Cobra,” “The Cobra Years,” and “The Artists.”129 Although Flomenhaft includes

Alfelt as a member of CoBrA, stating that “in her spontaneity, intuitive approach and intense concentration to find a release for her feelings she had the Cobra spirit,” she also explains that

126 Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, “Lotti van der Gaag: One of the Masterly Women,” Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, accessed March 18, 2020, https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&u=https://www.stedelijkmuseumschiedam.nl/tentoonstelling/lott i-van-der-gaag/&prev=search. 127 Lambert, Cobra, 5. 128 Lambert, Cobra, 64. 129 Flomenhaft, The Roots and Development, vii. 34

“Although she was totally committed to Cobra, Alfelt’s canvases—at first glance-bear little relationship to the Cobra goals.”130

Willemijn Stokvis, in her 1987 book titled COBRA: An International Movement in Art after the Second World War, includes Alfelt as part of the Danish section of CoBrA.131

Additionally, Stokvis also includes Alfelt in her much larger 2017 survey on CoBrA titled

COBRA: The History of a European Avant-Garde Movement 1948-1951. Describing Alfelt as one of the most faithful members of the group, perhaps because she took part in the first major

CoBrA exhibition and participated in the group’s various other events, Stokvis nevertheless states: “With her dream landscapes, which she depicted in increasingly lyrical colors and forms,

Else Alfelt had little to do with the spontaneous experimental mode of expression that so many

Cobra members espoused.”132 Likewise, the 2003 book COBRA: Copenhagen, Brussels, and

Amsterdam, by Peter Shield and Graham Birtwistle (b. 1942), published on occasion of a

National Touring Exhibition of the same name organized by the Hayward Gallery, London, included two paintings by Alfelt.133 According to Shield and Birtwistle, “Her type of crystalline

Expressionism with its subject matter of mountains and natural phenomena, although spontaneous in execution, was somewhat removed from central Cobra preoccupations….”134

Most recently, Alfelt is included in Alison Gingeras’ 2017 book titled The Avant-garde

Won’t Give Up: Cobra and Its Legacy, published in parallel with a CoBrA exhibition of the same name by Blum & Poe that took place in New York and Los Angeles, and which included

130 Flomenhaft, The Roots and Development, 154. 131 Stokvis, Cobra: An International Movement, 68. 132 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 231. 133 Peter Shield and Graham Birtwistle, “Artists’ Biographies” in Cobra: Copenhagen Brussels Amsterdam (London: Hayward Gallery Publishing, 2003), 103. 134 Peter Shield and Graham Birtwistle, “List of Works” in Cobra: Copenhagen Brussels Amsterdam (London: Hayward Gallery Publishing, 2003), 97. 35 one piece by Alfelt.135 In the book, Alfelt is described as one of the two women members of

CoBrA (the other one being Ferlov Mancoba), who participated in the dialogues leading up to the formation of the group, and exhibited with them through 1951.136 However, only one of her works was included in the exhibition, suggesting that Gingeras also considers her to hold an ambiguous position within the group.

The inclusion of Lotti by art historians and curators in CoBrA publications is far less consistent. Some art historians have included her in their texts, although not necessarily as a

CoBrA member, while most of them leave her out completely. For example, Lambert,

Flomenhaft, Shield, and Gingeras and also Stokvis in early editions of her CoBrA history, do not include her work in their CoBrA publications or in their exhibitions. However, in her most recent book on CoBrA, published in 2017 and fully updated from the 1974 edition, Stokvis— considered the leading CoBrA historian—included Lotti as a member of the group. Associating her with the Dutch CoBrA members, in her chapter titled “The Further Development of the

Cobra Artists” Stokvis writes that “With her sculptures, which opened up unchartered territory for Dutch art, she can, in fact, be fully considered as one of the experimentals in Cobra.”137

Stokvis’s inclusion of Lotti is interesting because she had left Lotti out of both her original 1974 volume and later editions. Stokvis stated that she had previously adhered too strictly to the belief that because Lotti did not participate in CoBrA exhibitions or was not named in publications that she was not a member.138 Defending her revised view, Stokvis explained:

Lotti van der Gaag participated in all aspects of the artists’ life in rue Santeuil; her work stood in other artists’ studios and vice versa. Her own lack of confidence, the fragility of her sculptures and the egocentricity of the other artists were undoubtedly the reasons why

135 Claire de Dobay Rifelj, “Works in the Exhibition,” in The Avant-garde Won't Give Up: Cobra and Its Legacy, ed. Alison Gingeras (New York: Blum & Poe, 2017), 211. 136 de Dobay Rifelj, “Selected Artists’ Biographies,” 193. 137 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 299. 138 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 299, footnote 248. 36

her work did not end up in the Cobra exhibitions in 1951. If Robert Jacobsen can be mentioned in the prehistory for the Danes and Reinhoud d’Haese amongst the Belgians in the wake, then Lotti van der Gaag should certainly be mentioned in the history of the movement itself.139

Robert Jacobsen (1912-1993) was a Danish sculptor and painter who had a close association with CoBrA artists such as Heerup and he was a member of the Danish group Høst

(1934-1942, successor group of Linien). Jacobsen also befriended Shinkichi Tajiri (1923-2009), a Japanese American artist considered by most historians and curators as a member of CoBrA. It was in Jacobsen’s studio in the Maison des Danois in Paris that Tajiri learned and mastered the welding technique. Through this technique Tajiri went on to create several sculptures that were included in the final CoBrA exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Liège in 1951.140

Reinhoud d’Haese (1928-2007), who went by the name Reinhoud, was a Belgian sculptor.

Through his friendship with Pierre Alechinsky (b. 1927), a leading Belgian CoBrA artist,

Reinhoud became associated with CoBrA. His sculpture titled Haan (Rooster, 1949) was featured as a reproduction in the final issue of Cobra.141 Reinhoud also exhibited three of his sculptures, a dove, a dancer, and a goose at the final CoBrA exhibition in Liège in 1951.142

Besides Stokvis’s important (if belated) inclusion of Lotti, her artwork has been included in several CoBrA collections in the Netherlands, such as those of the Stedelijk Museum and the

Stedelijk Museum Schiedam in the Netherlands, the Cobra Museum, and Museum Boijmans van

Beuningen in the Netherlands. Lotti’s artwork also has been included in several past CoBrA exhibitions and more recent exhibitions in these museums. For example, the 1996 exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Cobra and the Stedelijk, featured artwork by Lotti. However, the

139 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 299, footnote 248. 140 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 293. 141 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 344. 142 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 344. 37 exhibition description qualifies her inclusion, stating that, “The overview is rounded out with works by artists who were closely related to Cobra but who, strictly speaking, did not belong to the Cobra group, such as Piet Ouborg, Robert Jacobsen, Lotti van der Gaag, and Shinkishi [sic]

Tajiri.”143 More recently, her work was included in the Stedelijk’s 2003 CoBrA exhibition in St.

Petersburg, Russia, titled Cobra in the Hermitage: The Past of the Present.144 As mentioned earlier, most recently the Cobra Museum included Lotti in their New Nuances exhibition in 2019.

However, that exhibition catalog states that:

In the historiography of Cobra, van der Gaag was initially disregarded. Later some people started seeing it differently. They saw the strong affinity in the way both she and Cobra members worked and emphasized that van der Gaag was part of the life in the studio complex in Paris. But a number of Cobra artists, such as Corneille, would continue to oppose the idea of van der Gaag as part of Cobra. After all, she had not been actively involved in important moments of the movement.145

143 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, “Cobra & the Stedelijk.” Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, accessed March 18, 2020, https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/exhibitions/cobra-the-stedelijk. 144 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, “Cobra in the Hermitage: The Past of the Present,” Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, accessed March 18, 2020, https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/exhibitions/cobra-in-the-hermitage-the-past-of- the-present. 145 Cobra Museum of Modern Art. New Nuances, 67. 38

EXHIBITIONS, COLLECTIONS, AND COLLECTORS

In consideration of the material presented in this thesis that examines the work of Alfelt and Lotti, and the views of CoBrA founders and historians, a compelling group of questions are brought to light. What defines CoBrA? Who defines CoBrA? Do Alfelt and Lotti fit into that definition? Defining an art movement is not always straightforward, and this also applies to

CoBrA. In order to draw conclusions about the definition of CoBrA as a movement, it is relevant to look at how art movements more broadly become defined generally in the canon of art history. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines an art movement as “a style or prevailing inclination in art or design that upholds a specific philosophy or ideal and is followed and promoted by a group of artists for a defined period of time.”146 The Nova Southeastern

University Art Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida (NSU Art Museum) which holds the largest

CoBrA collection in the United States, also adds that an art movement “suggests a continuum in time that is tied to the notion of progress.”147 Some art movements are established by artists who share a philosophy or point of view, whereas other art movements, such as Impressionism and

Abstract Expressionism are coined by critics who seek to group disparate artists together within a set time period.148 However, other art historians such as Jonathan Fineberg (b. 1946) do not believe in movements at all. According to Fineberg, movements “seem to me an effort to simplify what needs to remain complicated.”149 Nevertheless, it can be argued that there are certain advantages to movements, such as international recognition, for artists who belong in them, etc.

146 The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, “List of Art and Design Movements of the 20th Century,” Encyclopedia Britannica, last modified June 16, 2015, accessed March 17, 2020, https://www.britannica.com/topic/list-of-art-and-design-movements-of-the-20th-century-2004700. 147 NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, exhibition signage “Modern Art Movements,” 2020. 148 NSU Art Museum, exhibition signage. 149 Jonathan Fineberg, Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being, 2nd ed., (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000), 13. 39

This leads to another question: Who gets to decide the membership of an art movement?

The founders of the group? Critics? Art historians? This is an important question too because there are advantages and disadvantages to claiming membership within certain art movements, including CoBrA. For example, during the four-year existence of CoBrA, its members exhibited artwork in many venues throughout Europe, gaining important exposure in the art world, whereas non-CoBrA members such as Lotti did not. When CoBrA began to receive more attention in the art world, membership within the group seemed more important. As Lotti explains: “It wasn’t so important then. It only became important in retrospect. So, around 1965 it became super important, that word Cobra.”150

Lotti may be referring to the 1966 retrospective exhibition titled Cobra 1948-51 at the

Boymans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam. Stokvis helped organize the exhibition and in

1974 went on to publish a dissertation on CoBrA.151 Or, perhaps Lotti was referring to the fact that collectors began buying CoBrA artwork and publications during the 1960s. For example, in

1961 a collector bought the remaining 400 copies of the catalog to CoBrA’s second exhibition in

1949 at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, titled La Fin et Les Moyens (The End and the

Means).152 Additionally, art collectors such as Miami Beach residents Golda Nathan Marks

(1908-1998) and Meyer Benjamin Marks (1907-1991) began buying CoBrA artwork in the early

1960s, initiating a rise in interest in CoBrA work in the United States.153 Recent interest in

European art of the 1950s and 1960s has led to a new recognition of CoBrA art in the United

States and beyond.154

150 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 151 Sheila D. Muller, ed., Dutch Art: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 1997), 70. 152 Lambert, Cobra, 110-111. 153 Linda Nathan Marks, “Golda and Meyer Marks as Collectors an Intimate View,” in Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra Collection (Milano: Skira Editore S.p.A., 2017), 120-121. 154 Renée Steenbergen, “Art is our Love” The Marks Collection of Cobra Art,”” in Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra Collection (Milano: Skira Editore S.p.A., 2017), 97. 40

When examining the “legitimacy” of artists’ memberships in CoBrA, as defined by leading members such as Constant and Corneille, it seems that the necessary factors of belonging to the group were acting as signatories to the CoBrA founding manifesto in 1948, and exhibiting with the group in their two major exhibitions, at the Stedelijk Museum in 1949 and at the

Museum of Fine Arts in Liège in 1951.155 As mentioned earlier, Constant and Corneille revealed that inclusion in these two exhibitions, in fact, formed the main criterion that defined a CoBrA member. Lotti did not exhibit in the former because she had not yet met any CoBrA members, and then she was actively denied participation in the latter exhibition by Corneille himself. In any case, there are problems with regarding these two exhibitions as determining CoBrA membership. For example, in the first CoBrA exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in 1949, despite being invited, CoBrA artists Jacobsen, Svavar Guðnason (1909-1988), and Ferlov

Mancoba failed to deliver their works within the given time and did not participate.156 If one were to strictly follow the criteria set by Constant and Corneille, these artists did not meet all of the so-called requirements. However, they were still considered members. Similarly, several

CoBrA members’ work was absent from the group’s last exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Liège in 1951. On the Danish side, Alfelt, Bille, Jacobsen, Guðnason, and Ferlov Mancoba did not take part. Of the Dutch artists, Eugene Brands (1913-2002) and Anton Rooskens (1906-

1976) did not exhibit.157 Yet they too were considered members of CoBrA. Explaining why certain CoBrA members were rejecting the inclusion of new artists into the group, art historian

Esther Schreuder states, that by 1951:

It is probable that Cobra front men Appel and Corneille were no longer interested in expanding the group when they went to live in Paris. They may have believed that the women—another Dutch artist, Dora Tuynman, lived in Rue Santeuil—had nothing extra

155 Jacques, “Men, Step Aside.”. 156 Lambert, Cobra, 142. 157 Lambert, Cobra, 194. 41

to offer them. Moreover, the previously deep relationships between Appel and Corneille was under immense pressure, possibly due to a financial dispute. They were in the process of extricating themselves from each other and from Cobra. It had become a matter of “every man for himself,” certainly as far as Appel was concerned.158

Additionally, Stokvis explains that for Appel and Corneille, the CoBrA movement had faded into the background during their time in Paris and that their relationship had deteriorated due to differences of opinion.159 Lotti reflected upon her own status in relation to CoBrA. Perhaps embittered, she stated: “Cobra has become a consumer item. Washing powder. A concert.”160

Yet, CoBrA membership was important for the exposure of the group’s artwork in the

United States. The NSU Art Museum collection’s founding donors, Golda and Meyer Marks, began collecting CoBrA art in the early 1960s, before the group’s importance was fully recognized in the United States.161 In addition to purchasing work by CoBrA in Copenhagen,

Golda and Meyer Marks also bought CoBrA artwork from New York galleries such as Donna

Schneier Fine Arts, the Gruenebaum Gallery, and the Lefebre Gallery.162 Sam Kaner, who owned a gallery in Copenhagen and introduced Golda and Meyer Marks to CoBrA, stated

“Cobra is fast becoming THE classic group,” and that “There are dozens of collectors like yourselves specializing in the entire group.”163 During and immediately after CoBrA’s four year existence, the artwork of its members was not favorably received by the art market. At that time,

New York had become the center of the art world and art market, and American Abstract

Expressionism dominated the scene.164 However, by the end of the 1970s, through the return of interest in painting, CoBrA had been rediscovered.165 In 1978 Golda and Meyer Marks donated

158 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 159 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 264. 160 Schreuder, “To be or not to be Cobra.” 161 Steenbergen, “Art is our Love,” 97. 162 Steenbergen, “Art is our Love,” 105-106. 163 Steenbergen, “Art is our Love,” 104. 164 Hovdenakk, Danish Art, 72. 165 Hovdenakk, Danish Art, 72. 42 their entire CoBrA collection to the NSU Art Museum, valued at over $10 million at the time.

With a collection of over 1,700 works by CoBrA artists, the NSU Art Museum has gained unparalleled status as a result of the donation and others that followed.166 George Bolge, a former director of the NSU Art Museum who accepted the Marks’ collection in 1978 stated,

“This is just the beginning. Now we have a magnetic core which will attract other collections to it.”167

As one of the full members of CoBrA, Alfelt’s work is included in the NSU Art Museum collection, thus exposing her artwork to an American audience (Fig. 30).168 Lotti’s work, however, is not a part of the museum’s holdings. The extensive collection of CoBrA artwork at the NSU Art Museum most clearly illustrates the importance of collectors and institutions in elevating the reputation of an art movement and the advantages of membership that follow, not only for artists but also for museums themselves.

166 NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, “Cobra Collection & Research Center,” NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, accessed March 18, 2020, https://nsuartmuseum.org/cobra-collection-research-center/. 167 Yolanda Maurer, “Museum Gains Status with CoBrA Gift,” Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, December 1978. 168 Three other US art museums—the Arizona State University Art Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Chazen Art Museum—also house major collections of CoBrA art. However, neither Alfelt’s nor Lotti’s works are a part of their collections. 43

CONCLUSION: WAS THE MATTER SETTLED?

The different positions that Alfelt and Lotti held within the CoBrA movement, and still hold within CoBrA scholarship and collections today, continue to be ambiguous and should continue to be addressed. Through examining their artwork, and by comparing it to the formal aesthetics and philosophies underpinning the CoBrA movement represented in my analysis of its two main manifestoes, I hope that I have shown Alfelt’s artwork as not reflecting CoBrA’s main principles and Lotti’s artwork as doing so.

Although Alfelt’s work does demonstrate some of the key characteristics outlined in

CoBrA’s manifestoes such as working from intuition, ultimately her artwork is not spontaneous, child-like, or “suggestive” enough to fit the main philosophy. As mentioned earlier, some of the main themes that can found in the two CoBrA manifestoes include: rejection of Surrealism, desire for international collaboration, promotion of anti-dogmatism, dismissal of the past, intent to rise above elite bourgeois culture, production of a “people’s art,” and fulfillment of a need for vital expression.169 Using a more methodical approach to painting than that of CoBrA, Alfelt’s artwork is characterized by structured, geometrical compositions. By comparing her artwork to the four main themes of Constant’s manifesto, it is clear that Alfelt’s artwork does not reflect the philosophies presented in that text. First, her work, influenced by traditional Japanese and

Chinese painting, as well as German Expressionism, does not reject the past. Second, because her compositions appear more structured and organized, they do not rise above formalist art, which Constant considered a sterile convention led by an obsolete bourgeois class. Third,

Alfelt’s artwork is not strongly “suggestive,” making it more difficult for the observer to share in the creative interpretive process. Finally, it does not demonstrate an urgent need for vital

169 Stokvis, Cobra: The History, 118 and Constant, “Manifesto.”

44 expression, but instead exhibits sophistication and restraint.170 Yet, although Alfelt’s artwork was considered too abstract, most notably by the Dutch members of CoBrA, she was still an active and committed member of the group, and her work is held in many museum collections of

CoBrA art in the United States and in Europe.171 As an official member of CoBrA, Alfelt has appeared in numerous publications of the group’s work, providing her with recognition, including internationally, in the United States.

Unlike Alfelt, I hope that I have shown Lotti’s artwork as following CoBrA’s main philosophies and aesthetics as represented in its manifestos, despite Lotti never becoming an official member of the group. Characterized by childlike and imaginative forms, Lotti’s sculptures share the aesthetics of CoBrA. Again, this is evident when comparing her work to the main themes in Constant’s manifesto. The childlike qualities of Lotti’s artwork appear free from art historical influences; her artwork is intuitively formed, elevating it above bourgeois culture into an unconstrained creativity where artistic freedom can be won from the most primary sources of life.172 Unlike Alfelt, Lotti’s artwork is not so clear and precise, leaving more room for the viewer to become involved in the creative process, thus making it “suggestive.”

Furthermore, Lotti’s artwork does demonstrate an urgent need for vital expression, sustained by a natural urge to create and communicate. Through her spontaneous handling of materials and without a preconceived plan, Lotti created sculptures that are dynamic, expressive, and imaginative.173 Although she was never officially asked to join CoBrA, and Corneille even refused her request to participate in the 1951 CoBrA exhibition in Liège, Lotti’s artwork

170 Constant, “Manifesto.” 171 Cobra Museum of Modern Art, “Exhibition New Nuances,” Cobra Museum of Art, accessed March 17, 2020, https://www.cobra-museum.nl/en/activity/exhibition-new-nuances/. 172 Constant, “Manifesto.” 173 Soutendik, Lotti van der Gaag, 58. 45 nevertheless reflects the group’s formal aesthetics and philosophies. Yet, Lotti’s work has been left out of many CoBrA publications and CoBrA collections in art museums holding CoBrA works, including, in the United States, the NSU Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

This exclusion is important because there has been a renewed interest in CoBrA art in the United

States within the last four decades.174 Had she been an official member, her artwork would be included in more CoBrA collections, leading to increased international recognition.

The negative treatment by the male members of CoBrA that both Alfelt and Lotti faced can be connected to Nochlin and Mulvey’s theories of patriarchal culture. As previously discussed, the behavior of male CoBrA members of the group, seen through these two theories, either actively or subconsciously reproduced the systemic social, cultural, and political barriers that barred women from partaking fully in the art world.175 If related to Nochlin’s assertion that the status of a “Great Artist” is associated with the concept of “Genius,” and “Genius” is, in turn, associated with men, Constant’s call in his manifesto for a ‘people’s genius’ likely assumes the

‘people’ to be men, and not women.176 Indeed, no women were included as signatories to the

CoBrA manifesto. This, and the behavior of the male CoBrA founders towards Alfelt and Lotti suggest that the former, at the very least subconsciously, believed that women cannot be effective creators; neither Alfelt nor Lotti were seen as central to the making of meaning within the CoBrA group.177 Neither artist completed formal art education, highlighted by Nochlin as a key roadblock to advancement. The exclusion of Lotti from institutional opportunities in the art world—exhibitions, publications, and collections—by art historians, critics, curators, and

174 Victor H. Miesel, foreword to The Roots and Development of Cobra Art (Hempstead: The Fine Arts Museum of Long Island, 1985), 1. 175 Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” 176. 176 Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” 153. 177 Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” 15. 46 collectors continued for decades and today her inclusion remains controversial. One wonders whether the status of Alfelt might have been more marginal had Pedersen not insisted that her work be included in the museum initially conceived to house his work alone. Nochlin’s and

Mulvey’s writings provide a better understanding as to why Alfelt and Lotti received negative treatment and explain how subconscious and systemic patriarchal barriers likely played a role in the relationships of Alfelt and Lotti with the male members of the group. This all raises important questions about the relationships of women artists within other avant-garde art movements as well.

Defining CoBrA and how Alfelt and Lotti fit, or do not fit, into its definition is no easy task. Stokvis has referred to CoBrA as a “language,” explaining that CoBrA artists worked with a spontaneity that led to the creation of a shared language.178 Lambert describes CoBrA not only as more than just an art movement, but also as a spirit that continues to be productive despite the ending of the movement.179 Art historian Victor Miesel (1928-2014) has associated CoBrA with terms such as “avant-garde,” “abstract,” “expressionist,” “international,” “experimentalism,” and

“post-world war.” He describes these terms as “words whose charged multiple associations should intrigue even the unimaginative while conjuring for the more impressionable an image of daring vanguard units, dangerous as venomous hooded snakes, making their way from one war racked country to another.”180 For the artists of the group, it seems that CoBrA meant something different for each individual. Constant, responding to Stokvis’s definition of CoBrA as a

“language” stated: “There is no Cobra style and no Cobra aesthetic. Although, particularly in the

178 Esther Schreuder, “There is no Cobra style and no Cobra aesthetic,” WordPress, last modified October 19, 2013, accessed March 18, 2020, https://estherschreuder.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/upcoming-book- sheds-new-light-on-the-cobra-movement-constant-one-of-the-cobra-theoreticians-there-is-no-cobra-style-and-no- cobra-aesthetic/. 179 Lambert, Cobra, 7. 180 Miesel, “Foreword,” 1. 47 museum world, they have often tried to make it look as though one exists through a process of careful selection.”181 Dotremont describing CoBrA stated, “It’s like going on a train journey.

You fall asleep, you wake up, you don’t know whether you’ve just passed Copenhagen, Brussels, or Amsterdam.”182 However, if there is no CoBrA style or aesthetic, then why was Alfelt’s artwork criticized for being different, especially by the Dutch artists such as Constant?

Furthermore, if the founding members of CoBrA were truly anti-dogmatic, as indicated in La

Cause Était Entendue (The Matter was Settled), then why were CoBrA members so opposed to

Alfelt’s work and why did they reject Lotti’s participation?

It seems that there is not a single definition of CoBrA. The continuing and still controversial debates surrounding the identity of CoBrA make it even more difficult to place

Alfelt and Lotti within CoBrA’s various definitions. However, through their associations with the group, powerful questions have been raised about who belongs in an art movement, who gets to decide who belongs, and how all of this is defined over time.

181 Schreuder, “There is no Cobra style.” 182 Roger Malbert, introduction to Cobra: Copenhagen Brussels Amsterdam (London: Hayward Gallery Publishing, 2003), 8.

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APPENDIX A: FIGURES

Figure 1: Else Alfelt. Photo Credit: Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://chpeamuseum.dk/else-alfelt-(1).aspx

Figure 2: Lotti van der Gaag in the Studio at the Frederikkazerne, The Hague, ca. 1958. Photo Credit: Cor Dekkinga and Museumkaart. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.museumkaart.nl/museum/Cobra+Museum+voor+Moderne+Kunst/Nieuwe+Nuances .aspx

Figure 3: Entrance to the Cobra Museum’s New Nuances exhibition, Amsterlveen, 2019. Lotti van der Gaag, The Fool, bronze, 1951. Photo Credit: Cobra Museum of Modern Art. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.cobra-museum.nl/en/activity/we-are-all-fools/

Figure 4.1: CoBrA Manifesto La Cause Était Entendue (The Matter was Settled), 1948, hand- written original page 1. Photo Credit: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3558757 55

Figure 4.2: CoBrA Manifesto La Cause Était Entendue (The Matter was Settled), 1948, hand- written original page 2. Photo Credit: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3558757

Figure 5.1: Reflex magazine cover, September/October issue, 1949. Photo Credit: Stitchting Constant/Constant Nieuwenhuys Foundation. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/pdf/1948_reflex_1.pdf 56

Figure 5.2: Constant’s Manifesto, Reflex magazine, September/October issue, 1949, n.p., first two pages. Photo Credit: Stichting Constant/Constant Nieuwenhuys Foundation. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/pdf/1948_reflex_1.pdf

Figure 5.3: Constant’s Manifesto, Reflex magazine, September/October issue, 1949, n.p., second two pages. Photo Credit: Stichting Constant/Constant Nieuwenhuys Foundation. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/pdf/1948_reflex_1.pdf

Figure 5.4: Constant’s Manifesto, Reflex magazine, September/October issue, 1949, n.p., third two pages. Photo Credit: Stichting Constant/Constant Nieuwenhuys Foundation. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/pdf/1948_reflex_1.pdf

Figure 5.5: Constant’s Manifesto, Reflex magazine, September/October issue, 1949, n.p., fourth two pages. Photo Credit: Stichting Constant/Constant Nieuwenhuys Foundation. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/pdf/1948_reflex_1.pdf

Figure 5.6: Constant’s Manifesto, pages 3 and 4, Reflex magazine, September/October issue, 1949, n.p., final two pages. Photo Credit: Stichting Constant/Constant Nieuwenhuys Foundation. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/pdf/1948_reflex_1.pdf

Figure 6: Else Alfelt, The young Communist, 1933-1934, oil on canvas, 19.5” x 15.2,” Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum, Herning. Photo Credit: Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://chpeamuseum.dk/UserFiles/Om%20museet/Else%20Alfelt/LARS_EA_Katalog_UK.pdf

Figure 7: Else Alfelt, Red painting, 1939, oil on canvas, 21.3” x 17.3”. Photo Credit: artnet. Accessed March 19, 2020. http://www.artnet.com/artists/else-alfelt/rødt-billede-red-painting-uJ2z7hUxp8xp0vi_pDozXA2

Figure 8: Else Alfelt, Black-red, the shape of space, 1938, watercolor, 12.5” x 18.7,” Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum, Herning. Photo Credit: Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://chpeamuseum.dk/UserFiles/Om%20museet/Else%20Alfelt/LARS_EA_Katalog_UK.pdf

Figure 9: Some of the members of CoBrA at the Høst exhibition in Copenhagen, 1948. Standing (from left to right): Sixten Wiklund, Ernest Mancoba, Carl-Henning Pedersen, Erik Ortvad, Ejler Bille, Knud Nielsen, Tage Mellerup, Aage Vogel-Jørgensen, Erik Thommessen. Sitting (from left to right): Karel Appel, Tonie Sluyter, Christian Dotremont, Sonja Ferlov-Mancoba, Wonga, Else Alfelt. On the floor (from left to right): Asger Jorn, Corneille, Constant, Henry Heerup. Photo Credit: NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://nsuartmuseum.org/cobra-collection-research-center/

Figure 10: Karel Appel, Hip, Hip, Hoorah! 1949, oil on canvas, 32.17” x 50”, Tate, London. Photo Credit: Tate, Karel Appel Foundation/DACS 2020. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/cobra 61

Figure 11: Constant, After Us, Liberty, 1949, oil on canvas, 54.92” x 41.97”, Tate, London. Photo Credit: Tate, DACS, 2020. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/constant-937

Figure 12: Carl-Henning Pedersen, Untitled, oil on plywood, 1945, 40.55” x 40.55” Photo Credit: Christie’s. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/carl-henning-pedersen-1913-2007-untitled-5560616- details.aspx 62

Figure 13: Corneille, Le Montagnard (The Mountain Dweller), 1950, oil on canvas, 13.77” x 17.51,” Photo Credit: Christie’s. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.christies.com/features/The-language-of-CoBrA-Celebrating-70-years-of-creation- before-theory-9123-1.aspx

Figure 14: Else Alfelt, Further Development of the Painting Man and Two Women, 1938, oil on canvas, 24.01” x 28.74,” Private collection. Photo Credit: Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum, Herning, Bruun Rasmussen Kunstauktioner. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://chpeamuseum.dk/UserFiles/Om%20museet/Else%20Alfelt/LARS_EA_Katalog_UK.pdf

Figure 15: Wassily Kandinsky, Rigid and Curved, oil on canvas, 1935, 44.9” x 63” Private Collection. Photo Credit: Wassily Kandinsky.net. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.wassilykandinsky.net/work-652.php

Figure 16: Lotti van der Gaag, Mensfigur (Human Figure), 1948, terracotta, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. Photo Credit: Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Pictoright Amsterdam 2019. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.stedelijkmuseumschiedam.nl/ontdek-de-collectie/biografieen/lotti-van-der-gaag- 1923-1999/#jp-carousel-3783 64

Figure 17: Lotti van der Gaag, De Denker (The Thinker), 1951, terracotta, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. Photo Credit: Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Pictoright Amsterdam 2019. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.stedelijkmuseumschiedam.nl/ontdek-de-collectie/biografieen/lotti-van-der-gaag- 1923-1999/#jp-carousel-3785

Figure 18: Else Alfelt, Impression-Skoven (Impression-The Woods), 1949, oil on plywood, 40.6” x 31.9”. Photo Credit: artnet. Accessed March 19, 2020. http://www.artnet.com/artists/else-alfelt/impression-skoven-impression-the-woods- p1bL7UNulytNgr-iyyTbew2

Figure 19: Lotti van der Gaag, Untitled, 1949, terracotta, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. Photo Credit: Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Pictoright Amsterdam 2019. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.stedelijkmuseumschiedam.nl/ontdek-de-collectie/biografieen/lotti-van-der-gaag- 1923-1999/#jp-carousel-3782

Figure 20: Else Alfelt, Points Reaching for the Sky, 1949, oil on canvas, 40.16” x 40.16”. Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum, Herning. Photo Credit: Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum Collection. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.cobra-museum.nl/en/artist/else-alfelt/ 66

Figure 21: Constant’s untitled drawing on second page of his manifesto in Reflex magazine, September/October 1948. Photo Credit: Stichting Constant/Constant Nieuwenhuys Foundation. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/pdf/1948_reflex_1.pdf

Figure 22: Jan Niewenhuys’ untitled drawing on third page of Constant’s manifesto in Reflex magazine, September/October 1948. Photo Credit: Stichting Constant/Constant Nieuwenhuys Foundation. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/pdf/1948_reflex_1.pdf 67

Figure 23: Else Alfelt, Den Spraengte Bro (The Blasted Bridge), 1946, oil on canvas, 31.5” x 49.21”. Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum, Herning. Photo Credit: Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelts Museum Collection. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.cobra-museum.nl/artist/else-alfelt/

Figures 24: Karel Appel’s untitled drawing on eighth page of Constant’s manifesto, Reflex magazine, September/October 1949. Photo Credit: Stichting Constant/Constant Nieuwenhuys Foundation. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/pdf/1948_reflex_1.pdf 68

Figure 25: Else Alfelt, Blåt billede med grøn virkning (Composition in Blue and Green), 1949. Statens Museum for Kunst/National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen. Photo Credit: A Place Called Space, July 20, 2013. Accessed March 19, 2020. http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.com/2013/07/staaten-museum-for-kunst-in-copenhagen.html

Figure 26: Lotti van der Gaag, Hommage Henry Moore (L’homme avec Laye Bouche), 1949, bronze, 19.29” x 9.84,” Ambassade Hotel Collection, Amsterdam. Photo Credit: Esther Schreuder, Ambassade Hotel Collection, Amsterdam. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://estherschreuder.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/to-be-or-not-to-be-cobra-lotti-van-der-gaag/ 69

Figure 27: Lotti van der Gaag, Untitled (Staande Figuur), 1949, bronze, 20.59” tall. Photo Credit: Mutual Art. Accessed March 19, 2020. https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Untitled--Staande-Figuur-/6F245D33056DE707