Asger Jorn treated art as something made with other people, quickly, and without permission. His paintings fill the surface with thick, colliding colour from which creatures and faces seem to appear by accident. His books and prints were often made with friends, poets and other painters, and his writing argued that the line between fine art, craft and everyday images was there to be crossed. For designers, he is less a source of motifs than a source of attitude: how to keep work loose, collective and alive.
Because Jorn died in 1973, his work is still in copyright. None of his records consulted at the Met, the Art Institute of Chicago or the Cleveland Museum of Art is flagged public domain or CC0, so this guide is text only. It describes works with the museum that holds them and does not reproduce them or suggest they are free to use. For public domain images by other artists, browse the MGD museum inspiration collection.
Who was Asger Jorn?
The Met gives his biography as “Danish, Vejrum, Jutland 1914–1973 Århus”. Published biographies give his birth name as Asger Oluf Jørgensen and his dates as 3 March 1914 to 1 May 1973.
According to published accounts, he trained as a teacher in Silkeborg, travelled to Paris in 1936 and studied at Fernand Léger’s school, then spent time at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. During the German occupation of Denmark he took part in the wartime art group around the magazine Helhesten. After the war he co-founded the CoBrA group in Paris in 1948 with the poet Christian Dotremont and the Dutch painter Constant, among others. The group’s name is usually explained as an acronym of Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, the home cities of its members.
Published accounts go on to say that in the mid-1950s he worked in Albissola, on the Italian coast, with ceramics and with the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, a group set up partly in opposition to a strictly functional idea of design. In 1957 he took part in founding the Situationist International with the French writer Guy Debord, and left it in 1961 while remaining on good terms. He gave a large collection of art to Silkeborg, and the museum there now bears his name.
Key works in museum collections
The works below are described from the Met’s collection records, which give the title, date and medium. None is reproduced here.
- Untitled, 1945 (the Met): a small drypoint etching, about 17 by 10 centimetres, made in the year the war ended.
- On the Silent Myth (Af den stumme myte), Opus 4b, 1952 (the Met): a colour lithograph from the Spiralens Art Portfolio (Spiralens Kunstmappe), about 27 by 41 centimetres.
- Mémoires, 1959 (the Met): an illustrated book, recorded by the Met under Jorn’s name. Published accounts describe it as a collaboration with Guy Debord, following their earlier book Fin de Copenhague of 1957.
The Art Institute of Chicago holds Pour Jorn, a 1976 portfolio of colour lithographs made in his honour by artists including Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Constant, Christian Dotremont, Wifredo Lam, Henri Michaux and Antonio Saura. It is a useful record of the network of painters and poets around him. Published accounts also name the large painting Stalingrad, held at Museum Jorn in Silkeborg, as a central work.
What to look at in Asger Jorn’s work
Colour as collision. CoBrA painting is known for saturated, unmixed colour laid on directly, with reds, yellows, blues and blacks meeting at full strength. Nothing is toned down to sit politely in the background. Look at how the colour fields fight and overlap rather than sitting in tidy zones. This is the opposite of a balanced corporate palette, and that is the point: tension is the subject.
Figures that appear from marks. In Jorn’s paintings and prints, faces, eyes, animals and masks seem to emerge from a tangle of strokes rather than being drawn first and coloured in. The image is discovered during the process. Designers who sketch thumbnails will recognise the method: scribble first, then look for shapes and pull them forward.
Line with momentum. His line is quick, looping and uneven in weight. In the drypoint medium the needle scratches straight into the plate, which rewards fast, nervous marks. Compare that with the controlled hatching of a nineteenth-century etching to see how much energy a deliberately rough line carries. Our expressionism theme gathers earlier public domain work with the same raw, emotional mark-making.
Technique: prints, books and ceramics
Jorn worked across media, and the Met’s records alone cover drypoint, colour lithography and the artist’s book. Lithography suits his style because the artist draws directly on the stone or plate with greasy crayon or ink, so a spontaneous mark prints almost exactly as made. A portfolio such as the Spiralens set, where several artists contribute prints, also turns printmaking into a group activity.
The artist’s books with Debord are, in published accounts, built from cut-up texts, maps and images, with Jorn’s drips and spills of colour running across and linking the fragments. The structure is collage rather than a grid. For a book or editorial designer, this is a reminder that a page can be an argument between elements rather than a neat container for them.
Ceramics were part of the practice too. Published accounts describe his time in Albissola as a period of work in clay alongside other artists. The ceramics theme shows how other makers have used glaze and surface as a drawing ground.
Jorn and the Bauhaus question
The name of the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus was a pointed reply. Where the original Bauhaus is often summed up as form following function, Jorn’s group, in published accounts, argued for imagination, experiment and play as the core of design education. Reading our guide to Bauhaus design alongside this one is a quick way to see both sides of the argument: a disciplined system of grid, primary colour and geometric type on one side, and a deliberately messy, collective, improvised approach on the other. Most working designers move between the two.
How designers can borrow from Asger Jorn
Start messy on purpose. Begin a concept with loose marks, splashes or random collage and look for shapes in the chaos before committing. It breaks the habit of drawing only what you already expected to find.
Let colours clash. Build at least one palette from full-strength hues that do not usually sit together, and judge it by energy rather than harmony. Use it for an event, a festival identity or a music cover where calm would be wrong.
Collaborate in the artwork itself. Published accounts describe CoBrA painters and poets working on shared sheets, and the Pour Jorn portfolio shows a whole circle answering one artist. Try a design jam in which several people add to a single layout in turns, and keep the visible differences in hand.
Treat the page as collage. For editorial work, try cutting text and images into fragments and linking them with a hand-drawn line or splash of colour, rather than locking everything into columns. Our poster design principles guide explains how to keep hierarchy clear even when the layout is loose.
Respect the copyright. Jorn’s work is not in the public domain. Take the ideas, the methods and the attitude, but do not copy his images into commercial work.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Asger Jorn?
He was a Danish painter, printmaker, ceramicist and writer. The Met records him as born in Vejrum, Jutland, in 1914 and died in Århus in 1973. Published accounts link him with the CoBrA group and the Situationist International.
What was CoBrA?
CoBrA was a postwar group of painters and poets founded in Paris in 1948, according to published accounts, by Asger Jorn, Christian Dotremont, Constant and others. It favoured spontaneous, brightly coloured work and collaboration between artists and writers.
Which museums hold Asger Jorn prints?
The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a 1945 drypoint, a 1952 colour lithograph from the Spiralens portfolio and the 1959 book Mémoires. Museum Jorn in Silkeborg, Denmark, holds a large collection of his work, including Stalingrad.
Is Asger Jorn’s art public domain?
No. He died in 1973, so his work remains in copyright, and none of the museum records consulted for this guide is flagged public domain or CC0. That is why this guide uses no images of his work.
