1983 Oil Painting by Hugo Hedemann

Hugo Hedemann (1903-1995) was born in Copenhagen, and after spending the first half of his life working in the dairy industry, he studied art for a year under the guidance of Danish painter Mogens Andersen. His first exhibition in Copenhagen was at the Artists’ Autumn Exhibition in 1959, and he went on to exhibit widely throughout Denmark and Europe.

In this painting, Hedemann has chosen to explore formal elements of art, focusing on colour, shape and composition in particular. The surface of the canvas is saturated in bold, pigment-rich colour that immediately invites us to explore the layers of feathered brushwork and glowing luminosity. The compositional format of square and rectangular forms is a distinctive feature of work by the artist that he continued to develop throughout his career.