Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Auguste Herbin – Jaune (1946)
- Specifications
- Description
- The Maker
- Brand:Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Denmark
- Country: Printed in Denmark
- SKU: LA-108024-FJ-OH
- Material: Printed on paper.
- Dimensions:33.1" x 23.4" (A1)
In Louisiana, constructive art has a special place. The museum's collection of Constructivist art was significantly strengthened in 1986 with a generous donation from the American McCrory Collection. A gift that followed in the years after Louisiana exhibited McCrory's collection in 1978—the only known overview of Constructivist art at the time.
Constructivism has its roots in Russia, where the avant-garde wanted to renew the artistic idiom after the Russian Revolution. With their art, the constructivists joined the break that emerged politically and socially. The artist, like the engineer and the scientist, had to build a new and better world.
Constructivists built their paintings from geometric shapes, and thus hoped to create an art that could be understood by everyone, regardless of background. The expression had to be rational, objective and useful. Constructivists distance themselves from any depiction of the seen, the emotional and spontaneous, and instead create their own reality.
Parallel to the development of constructivism in Russia, the constructivist idiom was experimented with in Europe. The Dutch artist group de Stijl and the Bauhaus school in Germany found inspiration in the Russian Constructivists.
From the beginning, the founder, Knud W. Jensen, intended for the museum to be a home for modern Danish art. But after only a few years he changed course, and instead of being a predominantly Danish collection, Louisiana became an international museum with many internationally renowned works.
Louisiana's close contact and collaboration with the international arts and cultural milieu has since been one of the museum's greatest strengths. And also one of the main reasons that it has been possible for Louisiana to present an exhibition program that has resonated so strongly with the public over the years. Louisiana has thus achieved a standing as one of the world's most respected exhibition venues, and in the future, it will be able to attract exhibitions and artists at a level that few other museums—either in Denmark or abroad—can match.
Knud W. Jensen put into action many of the period's visionary ideas about modern museum operation, including a desire for art to have a wide audience. It has always been the view at Louisiana that art is not just for an elite but includes experiences and visions for the many.
Why is it called Louisiana?
Many people wonder about the name of the museum. The short explanation is this—a nobleman and his three wives.
Knud W. Jensen chose to "take over" the name of the country house that he later converted to a museum. The property had been built and named in 1855 by Alexander Brun (1814-93), who was an officer and Master of the Royal Hunt and who married three women who were all named Louise.
Here at Louisiana, he was a pioneer in beekeeping and the cultivation of fruit trees.
From the beginning, it was Knud W. Jensen's vision to create a museum with soul, where the public could encounter artwork—not as something pretentious, but rather something that spoke directly to the viewer. And he emphasized the need for "supplementary content" that could help bring alive and enrich the environment: The more opportunities for experience that the program offers, the more Louisiana lives up to its idea—to be a 'musical meeting place' and a milieu that is engaged in contemporary life.
—Knud W. Jensen
