Silkeborg Kunstmuseum (Silkeborg Museum of Art)
Gudenåvej 9
About
This is one of the great provincial art museums of Scandinavia. The moment you arrive you know you're in for something special when you are greeted by two large ceramic walls by Jean Dubuffet and others. In one of the most beautiful areas of Silkeborg, in old parkland bordering the banks of the Gudenå River, Asger Jorn, a leading figure in 20th-century European art, donated his impressive collection of 5,000 paintings by 150 artists he collected up until his death in 1973. Many of the works were by his friends, artists he met in Paris "between the wars." Jorn is famous today for having founded the fabled COBRA group, based on the first letters of Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam, where most of the artists originated. The Jorn collection includes impressive works by Le Corbusier, Léger, Max Ernst, Dubuffet, Miró, and Picasso. Jorn himself was a virtual Renaissance man when it came to art, excelling in painting, sculpture, ceramics, tapestries, drawings, and graphics. His Moon Dog from 1953 is amusing, but he is at his most frightening in his masterpiece, Stalingrad. The museum is also richly imbued with an important collection of Danish art from the 20th century. Of the COBRA group and their paintings, Jorn once said, "We are in violent reaction against the social disorder brought about by war. We also renounce all other artistic trends of our day." The privately owned gallery supplements its permanent collection with changing exhibitions of paintings and sculpture.
