Pondus Turns 50 

You therefore now have the opportunity to own a unique piece of art in the shape of a Pondus money box and at the same time support a worthy cause, when we in collaboration with Danske Bank sell five art penguins at our online auction. All the proceeds will go to charitable organizations helping children, including the Children & Youth Foundation and UNICEF.

The Artists’ Take on Pondus

The five Danish artists include Kristian Hornsleth, Gitte Skovmand & Eva Holm, Jakob Tolstrup, Helle Bovbjerg and Ruth Crone Foster, who have each made their personal take on the Pondus figure. Each work of art has been estimated at a price of DKK 10,000.

Kristian Hornsleth has for many years created highly publicized art projects. One project included sinking a giant steel sculpture with DNA samples from 4,000 people into the Mariana Trench. He has decorated his Pondus with his characteristic, colourful brush strokes and signature. Hornsleth describes his own relationship with the well-known money box in the following way:

“I used to have a Pondus money box as a child. It terrified me. I had heard that penguins were very aggressive animals. On the other hand, the money box figure projects such a stoic tranquillity. It made the figure seem highly trustworthy, and so it made sense to put your money in it. The expression of my Pondus comes from something I have been working on throughout my artistic career – a kind of decoding of my own style. I call it abstract self-portraits. I have not actively sought this style but simply tried to paint what is inside me and I have tried diligently to refine this over the years. Therefore, my Pondus is me feeling the world and expressing it. It is the result of my research.”

Yarnbombing and Granite

Gitte Skovmand and Eva Holm reside on the Danish island of Fyn and make humorous yarnbombings under the name of Viola’s Værksted (Workshop), and they have knitted objects such as a full-size helicopter for the Roskilde Festival in 2015. Their penguin is of course dressed in a knitted costume in many different strong colours.

According to himself, artist and illustrator Jakob Tolstrup has found inspiration for his Pondus in Berlin and the city’s old bronze statues , while Helle Bovbjerg, whose focus has always been on ceramics, has chosen to model her Pondus from scratch. Ruth Crone Foster mixes digital design and classic imagery in her art. Growing up in Africa, she has no childhood memories of Pondus. Instead she has let herself be inspired by structures, colours, shapes and organic material that fascinates her, including granite.

Auction and Preview

The online auction will take place on Tuesday, 30 May at 8 pm, but you can already join the bidding now. The Preview takes place at Sundkrogsgade 30 in Copenhagen from Saturday 20 May until the auction day on Tuesday, 30 May.

View and bid on the Pondus figures