Karpen, 1950/57

Asger Jorn was a Danish painter, ceramic artist, sculptor and author from the years just before World War II into the 1970s. He was a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, from 1937 until 1942, in Copenagen. Later, Asger Jorn was one of the artists who founded the Situationist International and COBRA, an avant-garde movement. The largest collection of Jorn works today appears in Silkeborg, Denmark, in the Museum Jorn. When Asger Jorn painted, he did so in oil on canvas, and over the course of his career he made more than 2,500 total works - including ceramics, drawing, prints, sculptures, collages and tapestries. His books include "Luck and Chance: Dagger and Guitar," "Value and Economy" and "the Natural Order." He spent most of his life railing against establishments, whether in government, the Danish Communist Party or even the world of art. In 1964, he received a Guggenheim Award, but he sent an enraged telegram to Harry F. Guggenheim himself, refusing the prize and wanting "public confirmation not to have participated in [this] ridiculous game