Else Alfelt

'Carl Henning Pedersen og Else Alfelts Museum' outside the Danish town of Herning.

Else Alfelt (September 16, 1910 – August 9, 1974) was a female artist who specialized in abstract paintings. She was one of the two women to take part in the CoBrA. She was married to Carl-Henning Pedersen, also a veteran of CoBrA.

Alfelt was self-taught. She submitted her work to the annual Autumn Salon of Danish artists (Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling) from 1929, but her work was not accepted until 1936, when she exhibited two naturalistic portraits. Soon after this, Alfelt's painting style shifted to a completely abstract idiom of meditative and colorful prismatic compositions.

Alfelt was involved with the major avant-garde art movements in Denmark from the 1930s through the 1950s. She took part in Linien (The Line, 1934-1939), the artists' collective and art journal that was the first conduit of French Surrealism to Denmark. Under the German occupation of Denmark during World War Two, Alfelt was an integral component of Helhesten (The Hell-Horse, 1941-1944), the artists' group and art journal co-founded by Asger Jorn as a harbinger of experimental art and implicit cultural-political resistance. She was also an important member of CoBrA (1948-1951) after the war.

Alfelt's work explored motifs such as spirals, mountains, and spheres, which she linked to expressions of "inner space." Alfelt was directly inspired by nature, specifically mountains, which she sought out on her many travels, such as her trip to Lapland 1945 and in Japan in 1967.[1] In addition to paintings she also produced several mosaics.

She was awarded the Tagea Brandt Rejselegat in 1961.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Else Alfelt". Den Store Danske (in Danish). Gyldendal. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
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