Jens Søndergaard, Spring
27.02.18 - 02.09.18
Bright colours, big emotions and a brash devil-may-care attitude! This exhibition features one of Denmark’s greatest Expressionist painters; an artist who allowed his brush to dance across the canvas, his colours flowing freely, full of fierce temperament and great pathos. The expression ‘colour power, like bloody Hell’ [‘Farvekraft ad Helvede til’, meaning something like ‘bloody potent colours’] was coined by Jens Søndergaard (1895–1957), tellingly describing how he regarded the empty canvas as a place where he could capture stormy autumn scenes by the windswept western coast of Denmark – or the distinctive mood of a midsummer bonfire night. He could also give shape, colour and expression to grand existential themes such as loneliness, longing, pain and love. In this exhibition we will experience scenes from the sea and fjords, from town and country, meet the women in Jens Søndergaard’s life, be presented with a range of portraits of friends and family and have the opportunity to take a closer look at self-portraits by the artist as a young man and as a mature painter. The exhibition brings us close to Søndergaard the man and Søndergaard the artist, who, despite his early death at the age of 61, left a lasting impression on Danish art history.
Several of the works featured here are loans from private collectors, and in this way the exhibition also relates the story of the people who have passionately collected works by Søndergaard. The museum’s concert hall will screen the documentary film Jens Søndergaard – Farvekraft ad Helvede til. Produced by Anne Moulvad, a journalist at TV MIDTVEST, the film homes in on these collectors and their passion for the artist.