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Composition Robert Jacobsen

Artist

Robert Jacobsen Copenhagen 1912 – 1993 Taagelund

Culture Danish
Date 1952
Object type sculpture
Medium, technique iron
Dimensions

36.5 x 27 x 27 cm

Inventory number 69.2.U
Collection Department of Art after 1800
On view This artwork is not on display

Robert Jacobsen was a Danish sculptor, he produced his first abstract sculptures in the 1940s. In these years Antione Pevsner had a great impact on Jacobsen’s artistic attitude. He soon joined the artists who orbited around the Galerie Denise René, all exponents of abstract, constructive art, who were influenced by the works and theories of their great forebears, especially Kazimir Malevich, László Moholy-Nagy, Piet Mondrian, and the Russian Constructivists.
Jacobsen worked by spontaneously welding and forging his metal sheets into grid-like structures, without making preparatory drawings or complex mathematical designs. He started to use iron and steel in the French capital. While rhythm, motion and space formed the focus of his investigations, the empty space between the components of his sculptures became the central element of his works, which are simultaneously harmonious and pulsatingly vibrant. With his iron sculptures, welded together from simple geometric parts, he became a central figure among the circle of artists around the Galerie Denise René, where several solo exhibitions of his works were held between 1948 and 1953. During these years, he mostly produced iron sculptures that he painted black. The black paint did not make his works austere, however, for despite being treated with a neutral colour, the surface of the material was rendered smoother and more unified.
The black-painted iron work of 1952 entitled Composition welded together from long, straight blocks and triangular-shaped plates, was received by the Museum of Fine Arts as a gift from Victor Vasarely, the Hungarian-born “Father of Op Art”, who also frequently exhibited at the Galerie Denise René. The subject of this work is the dynamic tension in the relationship between simple shapes and the empty space contained within them.

Anett Somodi

This record is subject to revision due to ongoing research.

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