Carl-Henning Pedersen (1913-2007)
An autodidact Danish painter.
Carl-Henning Pedersen decided to cultivate painting rather than music and literature; as an artist he was self-taught. He was early fascinated by Picasso and Paul Klee and was inspired by primitive art, frescoes and children’s drawings.
During the war years, Carl-Henning Pedersen’s paintings were characterized by a dark-minded attitude to color and an oppressive, anxious content. But after 1945, a change is seen towards a brighter, colorful world populated by fabulous animals, birds and horses, which together with suns, stars, ships and castles float weightlessly around in a fantastic, cosmic space. He became a member of the CoBrA movement in 1950.
He received several awards: the Eckersberg Medal in 1963, the Thorvaldsen Medal in 1963 and among the foreign Guggenheim Prize in 1958 and the Prince Eugene Medal in 1980.
