Cool corona and Jutlandic colours

A number of this week's online works are united, not merely by geographical, but also by colouristic and compositional similarities. They are all from Jutland and they all challenge the naturalist approach to painting by setting the imagination free, each in its own expressive way.

Back in the late 1940s, a young Freddie Dybris travelled to Paris where he met, among others, the world renowned artist Jean Dubuffet. Modelled on Dubuffet, who became his great French example, Dybris would soon fill his paintings with myriads of small figures in lively landscapes – blue often being the pervasive colour which is also apparent in the six lots offered for sale at this auction.

In his fanciful approach to painting Dybris resembled his colleague from Aarhus, Teddy Sørensen: The compositions of both artists share an ever-present element of humour. In Teddy Sørensen's painting, however, the visual content enters a more grotesque and surreal universe that guarantee him a permanent representation at Aros Museum of Art.

The surreal strain and the humoristic edge is also a constituent part of the world of the third Aarhus artist, Thomas Arnel. "The Preparation" is a perfect example of Arnel's ability to interweave allegorical elements in an equivocal unity.

Desolate landscapes with slanting horizons are a regular feature of Poul Anker Bech's oeuvre. At first sight, we find ourselves in a depopulated world, but deeper within the compositions there are always signs of human activity: An abandoned washing machine, a bus stop, a caravan or, as in the painting presented at this auction, a colouristic heap of various elements by the roadside that attracts the gaze of the beholder, beckoning for interpretation. In this early composition from 1984, Poul Anker Bech has included all the familiar elements that have made him one of today's most popular contemporary Danish artists.

Bech's world is rooted in the coastal landscapes of Western Jutland. In this regard, transgressing boundaries of time and space, his art is akin to Jens Søndergaard's expressionism in which growing up and living on the west coast constituted an artistically crucial element. Early on, Søndergaard stood out with a painterly approach that found expression in bold and colourful renditions of the elements, even if it was grounded in the rough realism that prevailed on the shore of the great ocean. Søndergaard painted from an inner range of emotions, and he interpreted the blue ocean, the green hills and the white winter landscapes with a palette of unprecedented vigour. By artistically transforming nature and human sentiment, this vivacious painter achieved a textural materiality that clearly surpassed mere naturalism. In spite of this great artistic achievement, it is still possible to acquire a watercolour by one of Denmark's greatest expressionists at les then DKK 5,000.

This week's auction also offers furniture classics by the recently departed designer Hans J. Wegner. These include "The Ox" and "The Chair". They are flanked by highlights from the history of Danish furniture by Arne Jacobsen and Børge Mogensen, the smallest version of "The Cone" and a very well-preserved specimen of Poul Volther's "Corona", upholstered in delicate pale leather.

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