Mongens Balle

MOGENS BALLE (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1921-1988).
Untitled, 1974.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner. Signed and dated on the back.
Measurements: 98 x 130 cm; 114 x 146 cm (frame).

The work that occupies us stands out for the violence of the gesture and the color, for the matteric pastosity and the most genuine primivist vindication.

Mogens Balle was an important figure within post-war abstract art in Denmark and, notably, a member of the influential CoBrA movement (a group of artists from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam who sought a spontaneous, experimental and convention-free art form) along with Asger Jorn, Karel Appel, Constant Nieuwenhuys, Corneille, Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret, among others. He began painting in the mid-1940s, influenced by his stay in France and by Danish spontaneous abstract art. From the 1960s onwards, his work became increasingly abstract, losing explicit figurative associations, and he began to experiment with "peinture-mots" (word-paintings), works in which he combined words and images, often in collaboration with Christian Dotremont. His work is currently held at the CoBrA Museum in the Netherlands, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, USA, and the KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg, Denmark. He has also been associated with collections at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Tate and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.