Jens Johannessen/Per Kirkeby/Paul Osipow/Rolf Hanson - 2008

Jens Johannessen – Norway

Jens Johannessen (b. 1934, Sør-Trøndelag) is one of Norway’s premiere painters. After receiving his artistic education from the Art Academy in Oslo in 1961, his breakthrough came soon after in the early 1960s. Johannessen’s early works show strong influences from the French School and COBRA artists. His paintings from the 1960s, with their unique expression and use of color, juxtapose temperament with sensitivity. In the 1970s, Johannessen created and developed the famous cutpaintings, a characteristic and advanced collage technique with associations to Norwegian folk art and icons. The motifs can be perceived as pictures within the paintings, or narratives with human figures in dialog and dance, in other cases as amoebas or single patriarchs. These paintings, along with the x-ray works of the 1960s, are among Johannessen’s most important contributions to Norwegian art. Johannessen has in recent years worked with friezes and triptychs in large formats, such as the Allegory-series which are like close encounters with nature, expressing eternal beauty. He has executed several important public commissions, an his works are represented in important private and public collections. Two of the most important surveys of his works in Norway were the large retrospective in the Museum of Contemporary Art (1993) and in Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art (2002).

Per Kirkeby – Denmark

Per Kirkeby (b. 1938, Copenhagen) is without question the most important Danish post-war artist since Asger Jorn. He received his artistic education from the Experimental Art School in Copenhagen in 1962, and holds a Master of Science in geology at the University of Copenhagen. His works demonstrate his keen interest in history and art history, and his long career includes stints as a sculptor, architect, printmaker, draughtsman, filmmaker and writer. Kirkeby has published an impressive line-up of books since 1965, on a great variety of subjects, from poetry and drawing to art history and science. Kirkeby rose to prominence in the mid-1980s alongside artists such as Georg Baselitz and Sigmar Polke. In his long career, Kirkeby has mixed high art and popular culture with the natural scenery. The picture painted presents Kirkeby’s work as a motivically borne and almost methodical oeuvre. The largest survey of his works to date was at the Lousiana Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark the autumn of 2008, an exhibition that will travel to the Tate Modern in London in the spring of 2009.

Paul Osipow – Finland

The Finnish artist Paul Osipow (b. 1939), has over the past 40 years inspired several generations of Nordic artists. Throughout his artistic career, Osipow has focused on abstract and nonfigurative painting, marking his place within that tradition. He plays on a broad register, from the geometrically stringent to the spontaneous and playful. His style becomes constantly freer in his exploration of painting. His most recent exhibitions feature references to different artistic movements such as Late Impressionism, Cubism, and Fauvism, as well as American Expressionism. Osipow’s strong personality, participation in organizational work, and his teachings as professor at the Art Academy of Helsinki, have contributed to making him a key figure in the Nordic art world. His works are found in public collections, such as The National Museum of Art in Oslo, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and Kiasma in Helsinki. One of the largest presentations to date was the 2005 exhibition in Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, with an accompanying monograph, followed by an extensive survey at the Amos Anderson Art Museum in Helsinki in 2007.

Rolf Hanson – Sweden

Rolf Hanson (b. 1953 in Malmö, Sweden), is one of the most important Swedish artists of his generation. Six years after receiving his artistic education from the Art Academy of Stockholm (1979), he held his first large one-man exhibition in Moderna Museet in Stockholm (1985). Since then he has exhibited widely, such as in Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in 1998. The most recent large-scale presentation was in Dunker’s Kulturhus, Helsingborg in 2006. His works are found in several important collections in Scandinavia, both public and private. Characteristic of Hanson’s oevre are paintings with tension between picture-plane and three-dimensional plane, supported by a palette ranging from vivid color-fields to more subdued hues. His abstract compositions refer in part to associations with nature, as well as mental landscapes. In this year’s Annual Report are works from four suites of paintings: Round the house (1995-1997), Descendant/Remontant (1999), Ombre Portée (2001-2003) and Superficie Picturata (2004). Rolf Hanson received the prestigious Carnegie Art Award for the suite “Round the stairs” in 1999.