artist/ MORTENSEN

DANEMARK

Richard Mortensen is a Danish painter born in Copenhagen in 1910. In 1932 he left the Royal Academy of Copenhagen – after two years of study – and went to Berlin with Ejler Bille*.
Initially attracted by surrealism, Mortensen abandoned it on contact with members of the Bauhaus, Klee and Kandinsky, who immediately influenced him.
The following year, he presented abstract paintings at the Danish Salon d’Automne.
Co-founder of the magazine “Linien” (the line) in the early 30s with Ejler Bille and Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen, he published important critical and theoretical articles. In this capacity, Richard Mortensen exerted a strong influence in bringing the avant-garde to the general public. In 1937, Linien organized the first exhibition of contemporary art in Copenhagen, featuring 70 works by Miro, Mondrian, Klee, Kandinsky, Tanguy and Taeuber-Arp.
During the war and the years of occupation, he paints “scenes of sacrifice” and “landscapes of terror” in an expressionism comparable to that of his compatriot Asger Jorn, which heralds Cobra*. Mortensen did not take part in the Cobra adventure.
In 1946, he moved to Paris for two weeks, joined the Galerie Denise René and adopted geometric abstraction of perfect precision (the opposite of Cobra).In 1946, he moved to Paris for two weeks, joined the Galerie Denise René and adopted geometric abstraction with perfect precision (in contrast to Cobra).
He befriended Vasarely, Jacobsen and Herbin, and took part in numerous group exhibitions in France (Tendances de l’art abstrait, Prise de Terre, Quelques aspects de la peinture présente, Espaces nouveaux, etc.) and abroad (Venice Biennale, Aarhus Museum, Dokumenta Kassel, Rio de Janeiro, Helsinki, Oslo, etc.), regularly exhibiting his own work at Denise René, as well as works on the walls of museums: Sao Paulo, Stockholm, Malmö, Copenhagen, Aarhus, Paris(Centre Pompidou).
In 1962, Richard Mortensen returned to Denmark. There, he created numerous monumental decorations.His forms are subtly balanced, as are his canvases.
His art is of great clarity, a thoughtful construction skilfully supported by a vivid, delicate chromatic palette, bearing witness to a perfect mastery of the relationship between values.
It’s also a painting of movement, through the dynamic relationships created between the simple forms used.