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COBRA or Cobra, often stylized as CoBrA, was a European avant-garde art group [1] active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home countries' capital cities: Copenhagen (Co), Brussels (Br), Amsterdam (A).
During the time of occupation of World War II, the Netherlands had been disconnected from the art world beyond its borders. CoBrA was formed shortly thereafter. This international movement of artists who worked experimentally evolved from the criticisms of Western society and a common desire to break away from existing art movements, including "detested" naturalism and "sterile" abstraction. Experimentation was the symbol of an unfettered freedom, which, according to Constant, was ultimately embodied by children and the expressions of children. [2] CoBrA was formed by Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn, and Joseph Noiret on 8 November 1948 in the Café Notre-Dame, Paris, [3] with the signing of a manifesto, "La cause était entendue" ("The Case Was Settled"), [4] drawn up by Dotremont. [5] Formed with a unifying doctrine of complete freedom of colour and form, as well as antipathy towards Surrealism, the artists also shared an interest in Marxism as well as modernism.
Their working method was based on spontaneity and experiment, and they drew their inspiration in particular from children’s drawings, from primitive art forms and from the work of Paul Klee and Joan Miró. [3]
Coming together as an amalgamation of the Dutch group Reflex, the Danish group Høst and the Belgian Revolutionary Surrealist Group, the group only lasted a few years but managed to achieve a number of objectives in that time: the periodical Cobra, a series of collaborations between various members called Peintures-Mot and two large-scale exhibitions. The first of these was held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, November 1949, the other at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Liège in 1951.
The group is notable for having a Black artist member, Ernest Mancoba, who was married to Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, a Danish sculptor who was one of a few active women in the movement. [6]
In November 1949 the group officially changed its name to Internationale des Artistes Expérimentaux with membership having spread across Europe and the United States, although this name has never stuck. The movement was officially disbanded in 1951, but many of its members remained close, with Dotremont in particular continuing collaborations with many of the leading members of the group. [7] The primary focus of the group consisted of semi-abstract paintings with brilliant color, violent brushwork, and distorted human figures inspired by primitive and folk art and similar to American action painting. CoBrA was a milestone in the development of Tachisme and European abstract expressionism.
CoBrA was perhaps the last avant-garde movement of the twentieth century. [8] According to Nathalie Aubert the group only lasted officially for three years (1948 to 1951). After that period each artist in the group developed their own individual paths. [9]
The manifesto, entitled, "La cause était entendue" (The Case Was Settled) was written by CoBrA member Christian Dotremont and signed by all founding members in Paris in 1948. It was directly speaking to their experience attending the Centre International de Documentation sur l’Art d’Avant-garde in which they felt the atmosphere was sterile and authoritarian. It was a statement of working collaboratively in an organic mode of experimentation in order to develop their work separate from the current place of the avant-garde movement. The name of the manifesto was also a play on words from an earlier document signed by Belgian and French Revolutionary Surrealists in July 1947, entitled "La cause est entendue" (The Case Is Settled). [10]
The European artists were different from their American counterparts (the Abstract expressionists) for they preferred the process over the product and introduced primitive, mythical, and folkloric elements along with a decorative input from their children [11] and graffiti. [12] One of the new approaches that united the CoBrA artists was their unrestrained use of strong colors, along with violent handwritings and figuration which can be either frightening or humorous. Their art was alive with subhuman figures in order to mirror the terror and weakness of our time unlike the dehumanized art of Abstraction. [13] This spontaneous method was a rejection of Renaissance art, specialization, and ‘civilized art’, they preferred ‘uncivilized’ forms of expression which created an interplay between the conscious and the unconscious instead of the Surrealist interest in the unconscious alone. The childlike in their method meant a pleasure in painting, in the materials, forms, and finally the picture itself; this aesthetic notion was called ‘desire unbound’. The Dutch Artists in particular within CoBrA (Corneille, Appel, Constant) were interested in Children's art.“We Wanted to start again like a child” Karel Appel insisted. [14] As part of the Western Left, they were built upon the fusion of Art and Life through experiment in order to unite form and expression. [9]
They exhibited mainly in Holland, but also Paris and other countries in Europe. [15]
The first major exhibition was held at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in November 1949 under the title "International Experimental Art". Else Alfelt, one of a few women involved in the movement, participated in this first exhibition. [16]
The museum's director and curator Willem Sandberg was interested in bringing experimentalism and abstraction to The Netherlands, and had also been an active member of the Dutch Resistance during the war. He was deeply involved with the CoBrA group and maintained direct contacts between the artists and the Stedelijk Museum. [17] [18]
The architect Aldo van Eyck, who would later become known for his architecture of playgrounds as cultural critique, was asked to do the interior design of the exhibition. The close relationship between Van Eyck and the artists from the CoBrA, who also drew their inspiration in particular from children's drawings, makes it probable that much of Eyck's early inspiration for the playgrounds may have derived from CoBrA. [19] [20]
The Stedelijk Museum exhibition gave rise to furious criticism from press and the public. A critic from Het Vrije Volk (Free People) wrote, “Geklad, geklets en geklodder in het Stedelijk Museum” (“Smirch, twaddle and mess in the SMA"). The CoBrA artists are considered scribblers and con artists. [19] Newspapers spoke of offensive art and provocation on the part of the artists, and one evening for experimental poetry at the Stedelijk was the occasion for a public brawl. [17]
The last CoBrA exhibit was located in Liège, Belgium, in 1951. Shortly after this exhibit, the group dissolved. The show was organised by Pierre Alechinsky, an artist from Belgium. The Dutch architect, Van Eyck designed the exhibition layout, just as he had for the 1949 CoBrA exhibition in Stedelijk. The innovations of this exhibit were that the composition for the wall was in a grid formation. In addition, the sculptures, which were featured in this show were on coal beds from the Liège area itself.
This show was not specific to only CoBrA artists, and also, major artists of the CoBrA movement were not in this exhibit due to the existing conflict within the group that eventually led to the collapse of CoBrA shortly after in the same year. [21]
Notable artists who had contact with, and/or were influenced by CoBrA:
There is a CoBrA Museum in Amstelveen, Netherlands, displaying works by Karel Appel and other international avant-garde artists. [24]
The NSU Art Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is known for its large assemblage of works of CoBrA art. The museum displays works by Karel Appel, Pierre Alechinsky, and Asger Jorn, the movement's leading exponents. [25]
Auctioneers Bruun Rasmussen held an auction of CoBrA artists on April 3, 2006 in Copenhagen. It set records for the highest price for an Asger Jorn painting (6.4 million DKK for Tristesse Blanche) and for the highest amount raised in a single auction in Denmark (30 million DKK in total).
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Asger Oluf Jorn was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International. He was born in Vejrum, in the northwest corner of Jutland, Denmark, and baptized Asger Oluf Jørgensen.
Pierre Alechinsky is a Belgian artist. He has lived and worked in France since 1951. His work is related to tachisme, abstract expressionism, and lyrical abstraction.
Stephen Gilbert was a painter and sculptor from Scotland. He was one of the few British artists fully to embrace the avant-garde movement in Paris in the 1950s.
Christiaan Karel Appel was a Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet. He started painting at the age of fourteen and studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in the 1940s. He was one of the founders of the avant-garde movement CoBrA in 1948. He was also an avid sculptor and has had works featured in MoMA and other museums worldwide.
Jacqueline de Jong is a Dutch painter, sculptor and graphic artist.
Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys, better known as Constant, was a Dutch painter, sculptor, graphic artist, author and musician.
Tachisme is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The term is said to have been first used with regards to the movement in 1951. It is often considered to be the European response and equivalent to abstract expressionism, although there are stylistic differences. It was part of a larger postwar movement known as Art Informel, which abandoned geometric abstraction in favour of a more intuitive form of expression, similar to action painting. Another name for Tachism is Abstraction lyrique. COBRA is also related to Tachisme, as is Japan's Gutai group.
Events from the year 1948 in art.
Christian Dotremont,, was a Belgian painter and poet who was born in Tervuren, Belgium. He was a founding member of the Revolutionary Surrealist Group (1946) and he also founded COBRA together with Danish artist Asger Jorn. In this capacity he was responsible for bringing Henri Lefebvre's Critique de la vie quotidienne (1946) to the group's attention. He later became well known for his painted poems, which he called logograms.
Lucebert was a Dutch artist who first became known as the poet of the COBRA movement.
Walasse Ting was a Chinese-American visual artist and poet. His colorful paintings have attracted critical admiration and a popular following. Common subjects include nude women and cats, birds and other animals.
Jacques Calonne was a Belgian artist, composer, singer, actor, logogramist, and writer.
The Cobra Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Amstelveen in the Netherlands. The collection of the museum consists of key works by artists associated with three art movements, Vrij Beelden (1945), Cobra (1948–1951), and Creatie (1950–1955). In addition, the museum organizes temporary exhibitions by national and international avant-garde artists.
Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, is an art museum located by Gudenåen in Silkeborg, Denmark. The museum holds the collections that were developed by Asger Jorn (1914–1973) from the early 1950s until his death in 1973, since when they have doubled in extent.
Uno Vallman was a Swedish painter.
Sonja Ferlov Mancoba was a Danish avant-garde sculptor.
Ernest (Methuen) Mancoba was an avant-garde artist, born in Transvaal Colony, who spent the majority of his life in Europe. He was probably South Africa's first professional Black modern artist, and exhibited from the late 1920s onward.
Joseph Noiret was a Belgian painter, writer and poet. He was also the founder of COBRA and Review Phantomas, and director of La Cambre long.
Freddy Flores Knistoff is a painter and poet born in Viña del Mar, Chile in 1948. He has lived in Amsterdam since 1985.
Helhesten was an arts and literary magazine which was published between 1941 and 1944 in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was one of the leading publications during World War II in the region. Its title was a reference to a figure in the Norse mythology.
