Stormy winter and warm jungle ambiences

Among these many works, two paintings in particular emphasize the great span of the abundant selection: Anton Hansen's freezing winter painting from approximately 1920 and Hans Scherfig's exuberant "Jungle with Gibbons and Other Animals" from 1944.

Anton Hansen

In the interwar years Anton Hansen (1891-1960) was considered one of the most significant Danish artists some even considered him one of the best and most able European draughtsmen. Hansen was especially renowned for his black-and-white works. Inspired by early industrial culture and working class conditions of life, these works are characterised by striking commitment and social indignation. Before the artist 'found his calling' as a draughtsman, illustrator and satirist for newspapers such as Ekstra Bladet, he had close ties to contemporary artistic circles, however. Thus, in 1910 he made his artistic début with the artists' association "The Thirteen" who – led by Olaf Rude, Aksel Jørgensen and Jais Nielsen – had created quite a stir in the exhibition circuit the year before.

Anton Hansen's success as a draughtsman meant that his production of paintings was very limited. Thus, the painting offered for sale here, from approximately 1918-1920, constitutes quite a rarity. Furthermore, as far as dramatic composition and simplification is concerned, this painting easily bears comparison with the avant-garde painting of the age as displayed by Jais Nielsen for example.

Hans Scherfig

Hans Scherfig (1905-1979) is, like Anton Hansen, arguably an outsider in Danish art – albeit a highly popular outsider. Scherfig also used a large part of his artistic resources for other purposes than painting, e.g. the making of canonised literary works such as "Stolen Spring" and "The Head-Clerk who Disappeared". In spite of this, however, in his paintings he developed an entirely unique naively fantasizing visual idiom with good-natured renditions of the animals of the jungle and the savannah. Scherfig himself commented on the apparent schism in his production as follows: "People have made much of an alleged contradiction between idyllic painting and a critical literary production, and this way I have been ascribed a peculiar duplicity. Personally, however, I do not feel any split in my work, since what I paint and what I write are both part of life on earth. There are ample reasons to love this planet, just as there is a thing or two to criticise. But words are better suited for criticism than oil colours".

The painting presented here is an unusually large and extremely detailed and optimistic composition in which the animals, birds and insects of the jungle appear everywhere. In that capacity, this painting seems to epitomize Scherfig's endeavour as a visual artist.

Sources: Hanne Abildgaard: "Anton Hansen – mellemkrigstidens sorte satiriker", Copenhagen 2001 and Lena Lamberth (ed.): "Scherfig Katalog", Espergærde 2006.

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