Literature: Guy Atkins: “Asger Jorn. The crucial years: 1954–1964”, London 1977, no. 940, reproduced full page fig. 136 and p. 316. Exhibited: “Visione Colore. Mostra internazionale d'arte contemporanea”, Palazzo Grassi, Venice 1963, cat. no. 6 (here with title “Le bestie domestiche”). Exhibited: Galleria del Cavallino, Venice. Label on the stretcher. Provenance: Paolo Marinotti, Milan. Provenance: Private collection, Denmark.

Under the title “The Crucial Years”, art historian Guy Atkins casts a thoughtful light on the period from 1954 to 1964 - a decade he sees as the heart of Asger Jorn’s vast and unruly oeuvre. Though Jorn’s life resists any straight line, these ten years pulse with upheaval, momentum, and transformation.

Life as an artist is harsh for Jorn in the early 1950s. He lives under modest, almost primitive conditions in a small Paris apartment with his second wife, Matie van Domselaer, and their family. Malnourished and gravely ill with tuberculosis, Jorn collapses and is admitted to the Silkeborg Sanatorium. He remains there for nearly fifteen months. It’s little wonder that the works he produces in the aftermath carry the palpable weight of his confrontation with death. They are charged with raw energy, painterly confidence, and a wild, near-uncontainable embrace of brush and colour - paintings that push against the very edges of their canvases. A new, even more urgent expressiveness bursts forth, tearing a path through personal darkness towards a shared human and universal space.

Thus, 1954 marks not just recovery, but a reawakening. With renewed strength, Jorn steps fully onto the international stage. Although rooted in Paris, he works and moves nomadically between countries, forging connections, organizing exhibitions, and creating art in Italy, France, Germany, England, and Belgium. His true breakthrough comes in 1958, when his masterpiece “Lettre à mon fils” (Letter to My Son), 1956–57, is shown at the World's Exposition in Bruxelles.

Jorn’s titles are a world unto themselves - playful, elusive, and multilingual. Shifting freely between Danish, English, German, and French, the titles reflect his mood, surroundings, and spontaneity. “Les animaux domestiques” (The Domestic Animals), 1955, exemplifies the duality so often found in Jorn’s paintings. The canvas teems with creatures - eyes peeking out from every corner, inviting the viewer’s imagination to roam. Painted in a luminous, clear palette, the composition is inviting; the figures are connected by the meandering path of colour across the surface. A vibrant yellow dominates, held in tension with cooler tones and warmer flickers, but here and there a duskier shade seeps in. Darkness presses close, soft and heavy - an emotional undertow suggesting a family portrait shaped by both love and loss.