Asger Jorn
Vårens Offer II
Date 1952
Medium Oil on wood
Dimensions 160 x 183 x 5 cm
Inventory ID UID 102-287
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In May 1951 Asger Jorn hastily returned to Silkeborg, the city where he had spent part of his childhood and to which he regularly returned. He was suffering from tuberculosis and needed to be treated at the city’s sanatorium. By the end of that year, he had begun to paint in an improvised studio situated opposite the morgue. He worked on two cycles - Af den stumme myte [On the Silent Myth] and Årstidene [The Seasons]. He painted sixteen works that, in an irregular manner, spanned the months and seasons. These included an initial version of Vårens Offer I (The Rite of Spring I, measuring 128 x 151 cm, the Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum collection in Aalborg, Denmark). After leaving the sanatorium he settled in Silkeborg towards the end of 1952, where he painted this second, slightly larger version which is very close to the first in the arrangement and accumulation of monstrous heads that occupy almost all of the canvas. AC
I. Frederiksen, Denmark; Frode Folkvang, Holsterbro, Denmark; gallery 1900-2000, Paris; acquired in 1995.