Voyageur à l'âne
1957

signed; signed, titled and dated 57 on the reverse and signed and dated 57 on the stretcher
oil on canvas

60 by 50 cm.
23 5/8 by 19 11/16 in.

Footnotes

Provenance
Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd, London
E.J. Power Collection, London
Gift from the above to the present owner in 1968

Literature
Guy Atkins with Troels Andersen, Asger Jorn: The Crucial Years 1954-1964, London 1977, p. 160, fig. 141, illustrated in black and white and p. 324, no. 1017, illustrated in black and white

Voyageur à l'âne (Traveller on a donkey) from 1957 was gifted to the present owner in 1968 by the remarkable collector E.J. 'Ted' Power. Power's collection included signature examples from artists as wide ranging as Jean Dubuffet, Mark Rothko, Richard Hamilton and a major piece from arguably Jackson Pollock's best period, 1946-1947. Many works ended up in the Tate collection to whom Power had been a committed benefactor and trustee throughout his time as a buyer of art. Power bought in great depth, amassing large holdings of works by artists he particularly admired, not least amongst these the Danish artist Asger Jorn.

Jorn was a founder member of the internationally renowned CoBrA group, collaborating during his career with Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger and Guy Debord with whom he founded Situationist International in 1957, the year in which the present lot was executed.

By 1957 Jorn had become a major figure in European Post-War Art and as such Voyageur à l'âne can be seen as coming from the heart of the artist's most important and influential period. The painting itself features the artist's signature tones of ochre and yellow and yet is punctuated by vibrant flashes of violet, midnight blue and crimson, as fresh as the day they were painted. This freshness of execution is matched by the work's freshness to market, having remained in the same collection for almost fifty years.

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Asger Jorn(Danish, 1914-1973)Voyageur à l'âne 1957

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