19. SEPTEMBER 2015 - 28. FEBRUARY 2016
The Danish artist Henry Heerup (1907-1993) was not only at the core of Danish art for half a century, he was also deeply involved in the epoch-making development of European art before, during and after the Second World War. Yet a great deal remains to be said in relation to this special artist. Today Heerup is considered by many to be the Danish artist with the greatest popular appeal ever. His colourful paintings, lithographs and decorative works still enrich many public buildings, private homes, and school books. The broad appeal and wide range of his work seem at times to get in the way of understanding Heerup as the avant-garde artist he was.
More than 20 years have gone by since Henry Heerup died, and it is time to tell a new story. It starts with a collaboration between the Heerup Museum, the Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelt Museum, the Sorø Art Museum and PhD scholars Kerry Greaves (US) and Jens Tang Kristensen (DK). This joint effort has resulted in a large-scale retrospective of Heerup's work at the Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Alfelt Museum, an exhibition focusing on Heerup and Cobra at the Heerup Museum, and an exhibition on Heerup, Albert Mertz and Dada at the Sorø Art Museum. The project includes a seminar at Copenhagen University as well as an extensive anthology, approved by colleagues. The idea is to cover both the past and present – at times somewhat rigid – understanding of Heerup, in the hope of offering a deeper, more reflected upon and many-sided picture of an artist who was capable of a unique balance between avant-garde and popular art. The research is based on hitherto unexamined archive material from the artist's estate that first of all places Heerup in his own time, viewed from both a national and an international perspective. In other words, Heerup deserves to be inscribed in the context that contributed to forming his visual style and his course in life, where his artistic production played an important role.