Ejler Bille Eugène Brands (Danish, 1910–2004) (Dutch, 1913–2002) Large Mask (Store Maske), Mask, 1946 1944 Papier maché Bronze NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra Collection; M-352 Collection; M-235 After studying commercial drawing at the Amsterdam School for Applied Arts, Eugène Ejler Bille, a writer and a painter, was a Brands became an artist in the 1930s, key member of the Danish avant-garde making assemblages of found objects groups Linien (The Line), Helhesten (The inspired by Surrealism. Just after the end of Hell-Horse), and Høst (Autumn), which the war, Amsterdam art dealer Frits Lemaire continued the avant-garde legacy of Dada, commissioned Brands to create precise Surrealism, and German Expressionism in pencil drawings of his extensive collection Denmark in the 1930s and 1940s. Bille’s of ethnographic masks and objects from Large Mask reflects the Danish avant-garde’s west Africa and Oceania for a book he was investigation of ethnographic objects and publishing. This project inspired Brands to ancient Scandinavian art. Rather than a design and manufacture his own versions of mask to be worn, the heaviness of the masks. Often beginning with a papier-mâché bronze suggests something ancient and base, he would add paint and elements of permanent, much like the prehistoric Nordic assemblage, such as egg shell or snake rock carvings discussed in the journal skin, to form the masks. Lemaire also took a Helhesten (1941–1944). The mask takes on series of photographs of Brands imaginatively an anthropomorphic quality through the posing with these masks, as seen in the extensions suggesting limbs that protrude exhibition slide show. from the bottom and sides, emphasizing the playful animation of traditional artistic forms that characterized the Helhesten group in particular. 1 Egill Jacobsen Asger Oluf Jørgensen (Danish, 1910–1998) (Asger Jorn; Danish, Two Yellow Figures 1914–1973) (To gule figurer), 1942 Head (Tête), 1940 Oil on canvas Oil on canvas NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra Collection; M-232 Collection; M-226 Egill Jacobsen developed a new approach to Asger Jorn painted this mysterious mask mask painting evident in these two yellow picture just after returning from Paris, where masked figures, painted in thick textures he was studying with Fernand Léger but as if the canvas were actually adorned with struck by the work of abstract Surrealist masks. The Helhesten artists viewed the artists Max Ernst and Joan Miró, as well mask as a universal form that was neither as the work of Pablo Picasso and Paul fully abstract nor representational, a meeting Klee. The hatched lines around the eyes point between the personal and the social. turn abstract elements into a face, in a These forms played on the expressive deliberately kitschy or childlike process. The power of masks and responded to the black drips recall Jorn’s experiments with dehumanization of modern society, which surrealist “automatic” painting in 1938, when these artists believed had become cut off he dripped paint off the balcony of Alberto from ancient structures of myth and ritual. Giacometti’s studio to see what forms would appear on the paper below. Danish sculptor Sonja Ferlov (1911–1984), a key member of the Linien and later Cobra groups, had a studio next to Giacometti’s at the time and helped introduce the Danish artists to Parisian art scene. 2 Asger Oluf Jørgensen Erik Ortvad (Asger Jorn; Danish, (Danish, 1917–2008) 1914–1973) Shining Things Untitled, 1941 (Skinnende ting), 1948 Oil on wood (Shrovetide barrel) Double-sided, oil on canvas NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra Collection; M-227 Collection; M-81.52 Jorn decorated this barrel with Danish Erik Ortvad, a self-taught artist, was the popular traditions in mind. Traditionally at youngest member of the Linien (The Line) Carnival celebrations each spring, children group in Denmark, although his time in would swing bats to let the “cat out of the this group was cut short by his father, who barrel,” a festival activity with the same disapproved of art as a profession. Ortvad roots as the party piñata. Jorn’s abstract- fled occupied Denmark with his Jewish wife surrealist designs depict male and female during the war, moving to Sweden. Upon his figures turning into insect or animal forms, return to Copenhagen just after the war, he transforming a folk technique into a modern joined the Høst (Autumn) group that would be artistic expression. incorporated into Cobra by Asger Jorn in 1948. The double-sided painting Shining Things forms a semi-abstract landscape dotted with supernatural flora and fauna, including humanoid forms. Lucebert (Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk; Dutch, 1924–1994) Erik Ortvad Untitled, 1941 (Danish, 1917–2008) Ceramic Untitled, 1947 NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra Oil on canvas Collection; M-80.43 NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra Lucebert, a key poet of the Dutch “Viftigers Collection; FIC2013.254 (Fiftiers)” movement as well as an important visual artist, embodied the Cobra ideal of interdisciplinary artistic experiment. In the 1940s, he and the other Dutch artists painted designs on factory-made ceramics as well as hand-made pieces by ceramist Frieda Koch. Koch was the wife of Lucebert’s close friend, the Cobra poet Bert Schierbeek. Lucebert’s folk motifs and expressive forms recall the symbols and rhythms of his Cobra poetry. 3 Carl-Henning Pedersen Asger Oluf Jørgensen (Danish, 1913–2007) (Asger Jorn; Danish, Fairy Tale Picture 1914–1973), images (Eventyrbilledet), 1943 and Oil on canvas Genia Katz Rajchmann NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, (Genia Richez; Polish), text The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra Collection; M-79.33 The Girl in the Fire (Pigen i ilden), 1938 Carl-Henning Pedersen fervently believed in the Marxist (and later Cobra) idea that Artist’s book, color lithographs, everyone had the potential to create. He printed by Fischers Forlag, Copenhagen: developed a unique way of depicting animals Fischers Forlag and figures in fantastic landscapes inspired NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, by Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, children’s and The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra outsider art. In the early part of World War Collection II, during the Nazi occupation of Denmark, Danish artists were allowed to work While he was living in Paris and studying freely even in methods that the Fascist with Léger, Jorn (who was known as Asger sympathizers called “degenerate” at the Jørgensen until 1946) translated into Danish time. However, in 1943, the Danish situation and had privately published a book of changed when the resistance movement stories in the style of folk tales by Genia Katz became more active. In the midst of an Rajchmann, his lover at the time. It was one increasingly restrictive political situation, of many illustrated books and book projects Pedersen’s palette darkened. His composition on which Jorn collaborated throughout his is divided by unsettling diagonals and life. Its imagery shows a clear relationship to shadowy shapes, suggesting tragedy even in the biomorphic abstractions of Jean Arp and the escape of a fantasy world. Joan Miró, as well as the spontaneous line drawings of Paul Klee. 4 “The Heart” Erik Thommesen Translation (Danish, 1916–2008) — There once were two doves. The loved each Bust, 1939 other dearly, and they had only one heart. Wood (lemon, lime, and ash) There came a time when they had to take NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, leave The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra of each other, Collection; M-359 — and so one heart was broken in two — In May 1941, the Helhesten artists organized The hearts searched for each other — full of 13 Artists in a Tent, an experimental longing — they stretched their hands far out exhibition suggesting popular festivals and toward each other. But — in vain — they were fairgrounds, situated in Dyrehaven (Deer too far, and they could not reach. Park), a park in Copenhagen popular with — And suddenly they — full of compassion — the working class. Erik Thommesen’s Bust left the doves in order to come together was included in this seminal exhibition, again. which received only a few visitors but made a profound mark on the Danish art scene in And the doves were distressed, because they the midst of the occupation. Bust’s smooth had been left without hearts. wooden form redefines the portrait bust into something more universal, suggesting inspirations in nature, modernist sculpture, — Translation by Karen Kurczynski West African art, and ancient monuments. It seems to mark humanity’s lineage from prehistoric past to war-torn present, suggesting an earthly beauty and fragility. 5 Robert Dahlmann Olsen Carl-Henning Pedersen (Danish, 1915–1993), editor (Danish, 1913–2007) Helhesten Art Journal Asger Jorn (Helhesten Tidsskrift (Danish, 1914–1973) for Kunst), 1941–1944 and Digital version produced Egill Jacobsen by NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale (Danish, 1910–1998) Helhesten (The Hell-Horse) was published by a collective of artists, poets, psychologists, Cobra no. 1, March 1949 archeologists, and anthropologists brought Color-lithograph with hand coloring together by the charismatic Danish artist Asger Jorn (1914–1973). Established in NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, Copenhagen in 1941, this group, and the The Golda and Meyer Marks Cobra publication they produced, were made Collection during the German occupation of Denmark. Celebrating “mythmaking” as a creative response to the static mythologies imposed on people by ideologies such as Fascism, Helhesten reproduced modern art work, folk and children’s art alongside written texts on varied topics.