Carl-Henning Pedersen (1913)

Professions: Painter; Sculptor

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  Carl-Henning Pedersen: "Ved havet" (By the Sea). Signed on the reverse Carl-Henning Pedersen Molesmes 1987. Oil on canvas. 206 x 290 cm.

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  Carl-Henning Pedersen: "De gyldne skibe" (The Golden Ships), 1948. Signed, titled and dated on the reverse. Oil on canvas. 102 x 121 cm.

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  Carl-Henning Pedersen: "La Bonne Dame", Molesmes 1985. Signed, titled and dated on the reverse. Oil on canvas. 202 x 129 cm.

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  Carl-Henning Pedersen: "Foraar Livets overflod". Signed on the reverse Carl-Henning Pedersen Molesmes 1984. Oil on canvas. 124 x 104 cm.

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Carl-Henning Pedersen Biography

(b Copenhagen, 23 Sept 1913). Danish painter, draughtsman, sculptor and designer. He decided to become a painter when he met the artist Else Alfelt (1910–74) in 1933. They were married in 1934. Self-taught, he made his debut in 1936 at the Artists’ Autumn Exhibition in Copenhagen. His earliest paintings reveal the influence of Cubism. From the end of the 1930s he limited himself to a small group of motifs, which he presented in a great number of variations. Inspired by the fantasy vision of Paul Klee, Pedersen created his own world of fable, in which people and animals appear with sun, moon and stars in changing landscapes. He also depicted mountains, houses and towers, or ships and the sea, and he used the mask motif many times, in different forms. The draughtsmanship in his paintings often has the awkwardness of child art, as in The Gobbler (1939; Ålborg, Nordjyllands Kstmus.; see fig.). At first his forms were clearly delineated by his method of placing one colour adjacent to another and using the brush to outline the design in black on the picture plane. He later altered his technique to heavy stains of colour applied with broad strokes. The new environments he discovered on his many journeys were reflected in his subjects and his altered handling of colour. His colour juxtapositions gave his pigments a jewel-like radiance and strength. This required a colour scale of great refinement and unusual richness. There was an almost ‘Oriental’ clarity to his colour, which gave a fundamental lucidity to his fabulous imagery. During the 1940s he was associated with the COBRA group, and it was at that time that he developed an iconography of fantastic creatures in poetic contexts. Metamorphosis was central to his art: peaceful beings could suddenly become terrifying monsters, or the sun would melt and be transformed into an ocean of flame.

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