Rasmus Skov
Selected Paintings
November 27, 2002 to February 23, 2003
Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín
Zlínský zámek
Czech Republic
The exhibition is held under the aegis of his Excellency Jørgen Bøjer, the Danish
Ambassador to the Czech Republic.
The Exhibition has been established in cooperation with the Tomas Bata University in Zlín
and the Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín with the support of the Township of Zlín.
LIST OF PAINTINGS:
1. Sprouting Cabbages, 1935 oil, canvas, 59x56 cm; signed bottom right: Rasmus Skov;
[C.r. 33-20]
Catalogue No. 18
2. French Landscape “St. Paul de Vence”, 1938 oil, canvas, 74x83 cm; signed and dated
bottom right: Rasmus Skov 1938; [C.r. 38-44]
Catalogue No. 20
3. Womans Portrait, “The Red blouse”, 1938 oil, canvas, 80x61 cm; signed and dated:
Rasmus Skov 1938; [C.r. 38-27]
Catalogue No. 21
4. Violin, 1949 oil, canvas, 79x57 cm; signed on back bottom center, left: RS; [C.r. 49-05]
Catalogue No. 25
5. Coffee Roastery Chimnies, 1950 oil, masonite, 67x83 cm; signed on back bottom center:
RS [C.r. 50-09], Catalogue No. 27
6. Mandolin, Glass and Loaf, 1950 oil, canvas, 77x58 cm; signed bottom right: Rasmus
Skov; [C.r. 50-12]
Catalogue No. 28
7. Mandolin and Playing Cards, 1950 oil, canvas, 75x54 cm; signed and dated bottom
center: Rasmus Skov 1950; [C.r. 50-21]
Catalogue No. 29
8. French Town “Villefranche”, 1952 oil, plywood, 50x61 cm; signed and dated: Rasmus
Skov 1952; [C.r. 52-12]
Catalogue No. 39
9. Landscape with Trees, 1952 oil, canvas, 54x65 cm; signed back center, left: RS; [C.r.
52-21]
Catalogue No. 40
10. Jug and Glas with Sprouting Onion, 1953 oil, canvas, 81x65 cm; signed bottom right:
Ras. Skov; [C.r. 53-26], Catalogue No. 45
11. Coffeepot, Glass and Cream Jug, 1953 oil, canvas, 110x76 cm; signed and dated
bottom right: Rasmus Skov 1953; [C.r. 53-52]
Catalogue No. 47
12. Cage with Budgerirars, 1955 oil, canvas, 88x66 cm; signed back center, left: RS; [C.r.
55-05]
Catalogue No. 48
13. Coffeepot and Glass with Spoon, 1955 oil, masonite, 50x65 cm; signed and dated top
left: Rasmus Skov 1955; [Cr. 55-28A], Catalogue No. 49
14. Girls Head with Chignon, 1956 oil, masonite, 56x48 cm; signed back center, left: RS;
[C.r. 56-11]
Catalogue No. 50
15. Head, Jug and fruit Bowl, 1956 oil, canvas, 115x107 cm; signed bottom, right: Rasmus
Skov; [C.r. 56-23]
Catalogue No. 53
THE PAINTINGS OF DANISH ARTIST RASMUS SKOV
IN THE CONTEXT OF CZECH MODERN ART.
One of the specialized themes of the Regional Gallery of Visual Arts in Zlín focuses on
Czech visual art of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, it is concerned with this issue in a
larger international context, which invariably influenced its creation. That is without a doubt
true of certain specific periods of Czech modern art. One of these outstanding periods is
cubism. Even before the independent Czechoslovakia was founded, cubism was considered by
its creators a modern national style through which the country was taking an integral part in
the cultural development of modern Europe. There is probably no other country in which this
artistic movement developed and evolved as much as in the former Czechoslovakia. Here, it
found a distinct expression not only in visual arts - the arts of painting and sculpture - but also
in architecture and commercial art. Cubism was one of the dominant artistic forms even
between the two world wars, which included Czech rondo cubism, with art deco touches, as
well as so called lyrical cubism in the 1920s and 30s, and work of numerous significant artists
of all generations and various styles. besides the creators and founders of Czech modern art
(E. Filla, J. Čapek, V. Špála, A. Justitz), there was also the younger, post-war generation
represented by P. Kotík., V. Makovský, V. Tittelbach, and V. Bartovský. Cubism in fact
played a very specific role in the Czech environment of the second half of last century. This
was thanks to such figures as Emil Filla’s students, associated to a group called “Trasa” (“The
Route”), who, in the 1950s and 60s, took part in the process of emancipation of modern
Czech art after the period of Social Realism. Among the significant Czech artists who were
active in what is now the Zlín Region and who were influenced by cubism, was mainly
Vladislav Vaculka, but partly also Vladimír Vašíček, and, in his early works, Svatopluk
Slovenčík. The study of cubism in Czech art could be endless, because this movement is
echoed in the works of contemporary artists even today.
At the outset of Czech Modernism, Cézanne’s influence played its role, as well as that
of the representatives of fauvism, of Derain’s and Matiss’s work, and, in general, of all French
art from the beginning of 20th century. Also the Northern influence belonged to its decisive
sources of inspiration and should not be overlooked. It was represented, for example, by
Edvard Munch, called “the violent dreamer” in F. X. Šalda’s famous review of Munch’s
inspiring 1905 Prague exhibition. And next to Munch, there were the German expressionists.
Thus modern Czech art showed a distinct dynamic stream of existential expressionism from
its very beginning. And just in between the domestic Northern tradition of expressionistic
naturalism and the above mentioned French contributions to 20th century visual arts, the
artistic style of Danish painter Rasmus Skov developed in the 1920s arid 30s. His work went
through an interesting development in the following decades, and we can find its counterparts
easier in the Czech art than in the Northern, Scandinavian cultural environment. This chamber
exhibition of Skov’s work from the 1930s - 1950s in the Regional Gallery of Visual Arts in
Zlín therefore has not only its cultural function, but also a special foundation. In some of
Skov’s early works there is already evident, apart from strongly expressive brush-work pasted
naturalistic paintings (e.g. Sprouting Cabbages, 1935), a certain attempt to organize form in
the style of the French tradition founded by Cézanne and Derain (e.g. Skov’s A French
Village, 1930). This trend completely predominated in his work during the second half of the
1930s, when he visited France frequently for extended periods, and after the impressionistic
period [1929 - 1937] tended towards fauvism. In spite of certain tendencies towards
expression of psychological insight that showed especially in imaginative colour of some
compositions (e.g. in the portrait of a woman - Red blouse, 1938), he clearly was trying to
suppress the details and stylise the motif [object], which gradually led him to more
fundamental artistic solutions, and to a principally new organization of forms. This trend was,
however, fulfilled only in his period of analytic cubism, in a series of compositions created in
the second half of the 1940s and first half of the 1950s.
Unlike the typical phases of development of European cubism which took place mainly
in the 1920s, Skov’s paintings from this period - not unlike his Czech contemporaries’ works
– retained not only certain innovations of form but also colour qualities that were in harmony
with the author’s mentality. Among the exhibits this is most obvious in monumental still-lifes
Violin (1949), and the city-scape Cofee-roastery Chimmeys (1950). The last part of the
exhibition collection consists of important paintings from the mid 1950s. These stemmed
from Skov’s original interpretation of the cubistic genre but they are more influenced by the
development of forms of synthetic cubism. There is no doubt that the exhibition offers a good
opportunity to compare the work of a prominent Northerner painter of the last century with
the work of his Czech contemporaries, the masters of the Czech modern arts, and that was
one of the organizers’ intentions. This is supported by the fact that the exhibition is placed
close to the permanent exhibition of the 20th century Czech painting and sculpture from the
collections of the Regional Gallery of Visual Arts in Zlín, which is one of the best in the
Czech Republic. The visitor will be perhaps pleasantly surprised to find out that, despite
certain differences rooted in the necessarily different cultural and artistic traditions of the two
countries, there are nevertheless numerous interesting, remarkable similarities between the
work of many representatives of Czech art (e.g. some creative periods of Emil Filla, cubism
of Václav Bartovský, etc.) and that of Rasmus Skov.
PhDr. Ludvík Ševeček, September 2002
Director of the Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín, Czech Republic
RASMUS SKOV - INTRODUCTION
Danish Painter [1907 - 2001]1
Rasmus Skov’s paintings, dating from the period 1929 through 1979, document an
artistic development essentially spanning from impressionism through fauvism to cubism.
Skov dedicated himself to painting already in his youth and his oeuvre comprises more than a
thousand oil paintings and two thousand works in other media, including watercolor,
charcoal, color pencil, crayon, paper-collage, linoleum cuts, mixed media and ceramics.
Throughout Skov’s work, his faithfulness to the depicted motif is readily apparent, and the
painterly concerns of aesthetics, color and composition are central to his art, while he is
intentionally eschewing any element of narrative and symbolism. Skov lived and worked for
extended periods in Denmark, Germany, France, Portugal and the USA, acquiring a good
command of five languages. And he very early in life adopted an international world-view,
which is reflected in his approach to the art, and in part may help to explain his artistic
development2.
Rasmus Skov was born in 1907 into a prosperous family living in the provincial town
Middelfart in Denmark. He received a traditional education followed by apprenticeship and
training in the decorative arts, drawing and painting in Copenhagen from 1923 through 1928.
As he continued his studies in Munich, he became acquainted with the objectivity-in-art
movement “Die Neue Sachlikeit”, and in 1932 he completed at the age of 25 the masters
program in art and painting3. During these early years he also worked for short periods as
decorative painter to finance his visits to the art centers and museums in Switzerland, Italy,
France and Spain, where he could directly study classic and Renaissance art as well as the
latest developments in European modern art.
Skov’s appreciation of the importance of art as an integral part of European culture
originated from these travels around Europe, and the influence of the late 19th and early 20th
century French painters on his artistic priorities can be traced throughout his entire oeuvre.
Thus his earliest known plain-air landscapes from 1930 - 31 were painted in Southern France,
and already then demonstrate an accomplished, mature artist in complete command of the
impressionist idiom. Starting from that point, one can readily identify the three predominant
stylistic periods in Rasmus Skov’s artistic development as being representative of
impressionism [1929 - 1937], fauvism [1938 - 1947] and cubism [1948 - 1979], albeit with
his very personal imprint. However, because Skov gradually evolved and transitioned from
one artistic expression into the next without abrupt programmatic changes, the precise
delineation of each period may perhaps at times seem ambiguous. Skov’s personal artistic
development in fact reiterated the early development of modern art: starting with the
impressionists’ revolt against classicism and romanticism, continued by the innovative
reshaping of aesthetics by the fauvists, who in their turn saw the torch of artistic innovation
pass to cubism.
To understand Skov’s artistic development, however, it is helpful to realize that,
although the visual images of impressionism, fauvism and cubism are so markedly different,
they share several fundamental artistic and aesthetic concerns that sets them apart from other
pictorial art4, such as romanticism, naivism, and expressionism, whose substance is in
narrative. Furthermore, the three styles which appear in Skov’s art depict recognizable motifs
that embody definable three-dimensional objects, and this obviously distances them
significantly from dada and nonfigurative-abstract art. Due to the imperative of depicting
objects, the artists practicing impressionism, fauvism and cubism therefore are necessarily
concerned with resolving the fundamental pictorial conflict that exists between the aesthetic
demand for two-dimensional pictorial unity and spatial three-dimensionality. The invalidation
of traditional, renaissance illusive convention in picturing space in plane consequently led to
the emancipation of the picture. By granting two-dimensionality to the picture the artists have
opened the door to new aesthetics, which activated the viewer. It was mainly cubism, which,
at the beginning of 20th century, with its objectivity and respect to the autonomy of the
picture, analyzed three-dimensional objects in order to arrange them into the plane on a purely
esthetical basis. The synthetic cubism has also, to a certain level, respected this rule, although
it already started to renew the continuity of real objects’ shapes. Into the context of these
efforts, typical for the major part of modern art, the work of Rasmus Skov can also be
included, because its unifying element is in pure art, in visual expression of spatial qualities in
plane, in the effort to activate the visualization of the viewer5.
After finishing his studies in Munich in 1932, Skov returned to Copenhagen where he
married the following year and started to work. His next trip abroad went in 1933 via Paris to
Haut-de-Cagnes, where he continued plain-air painting during the winter and following
spring. In the spring of 1934 he returned via Nice, Spoleto and Vienna to Denmark, where he
remained during the next three years while his first two sons were born. His many paintings
of landscapes and still-lifes from this period testify to his joyfulness with life and intimate
engagement with his art. As noted, Skov painted predominantly in the impressionist idiom
during the years of 1929 - 1937, spending alternate periods working in Denmark and Southern
France. It is not surprising, therefore, that his paintings combine the sustaining elements of
traditional Danish landscape painting with strong influences of French impressionism, notably
Monet, Renoir and Cézanne. This is recognizable in his utmost consideration given to color
harmony, the freedom of his approach to composition, the careful use of meticulously applied
expressive brush strokes and the resulting unity of the image. Besides the evident competence
of execution that characterizes his work6, Skov’s artistic individuality was expressed in the
selection and interpretation of his motifs, careful composition of the images and sensitive
balance of colors. His motifs included still-lifes and portraits, but the main focus were
landscapes, usually executed plain-air and reflecting faithfully the very different light, colors
and atmospheric conditions he encountered in each specific Mediterranean or Baltic location
where he was.
In the summer of 1937 Skov decided to move to France with his wife and two young
sons after living almost three years in Denmark, first near his parents home in Fyn, then in the
hilly Mols region, and finally for a year on the Baltic island Bornholm, which has attracted so
many other Danish painters because of its relatively mild and sunny climate and its peculiar
bright light that seems somewhat akin to the lagoon-reflected Venetian light. Travelling
through Paris, Skov visited a number of art galleries as well as the World Expo where he saw
for the first time Picasso’s ýGuernicaý. In the late fall, the family settled in La-Colle-sur-Loup
in Provence, and it was here that Skov completed the metamorphosis from impressionism to
fauvism he had started in Bornholm. The paintings from this period are compositions that
tend towards planarity7, with intensely luminous colors suggesting the liberating aesthetic
influences of Gauguin, Derain and Matisse, and perhaps also of Mondrian and De Stijl.
Skov’s highly decorative fauvist images with semi-abstract figures, landscapes and stilllifes
almost immediately won critical acclaim8. And in the spring of 1938 Skov was invited to open
his first one-man exhibition in Paris with 28 paintings9. As further confirmation of his artistic
strength and quality, two of his paintings were selected for showing in May 1938 at the
exhibition by the ýSalon-Des-Collectioneursý in Nice together with a number of highly
regarded and well-known painters10, including Chirico, Derain, Gauguin, K1ee, Manet, Marc,
Matisse, Picasso, Renoir and Vlaminck.
In the autumn of 1938 Skov decided to return to Bornholm, Denmark in large part due
to his concerns about the political developments in central Europe. Once installed in the small
town Aarsdale, he continued painting in the fauvist idiom, however, the colors of his images
became more constrained and sober, accurately reflecting the lower sunlight in the Baltic.
After just one year on the island, as the signs of war drew nearer, he moved to Snekkersteen
near Copenhagen where his latest work was exhibited in March 193911 and May 194012.
Eventually he resettled the family in a farmhouse in Bakkeboelle that was to become his home
during the following five war years. Although the war intruded in many different ways, and
much of his time was spent working the small farm to sustain the family, Skov continued to
paint at a reduced rate, further exploring the artistic possibilities of fauvism. His paintings
from this period depict family portraits and a series of colorful images of peacefully reclining
odalisques in nature, and they clearly demonstrate that he refused to let his art and spirit
become dominated by the outside events. At the end of the war, after spending almost eight
years in relative isolation in Denmark, Skov was again eager to revisit with the stronger
sunlight in southern Europe, hoping to be invigorated and re-inspired. In the spring of 1946 he
embarked a ship with his wife and three children via Lisbon to the small, tropical island
Madeira, mainly because it promised lots of sunlight and seemed untouched by war-ravages
that were all too visible elsewhere. He settled in a house high above the rocky beach in the
town Santa Cruz, and in this peaceful setting he again went to work on his art. Within a few
months he began to reexamine, with entirely unanticipated results, the visual relationship
between the apparent two-dimensionality resulting from his previous interpretation of
fauvism, and the aesthetic means to achieve a much more pronounced, and more persuasively
visualized, three-dimensionality of the finished image. On Madeira, Skov was entirely
without access to any art museum, art collections, books or interaction with other artists. He
was therefore forced to evaluate for himself, quite methodically as his gradually changing
paintings from this period demonstrate, the pictorial parameters that would allow him to
achieve his desire for enhanced spatial visualization. Eventually this persuaded him to
incorporate key elements of visual representation that are already employed in synthetic
cubism, into his artistic vision. Skov’s path therefore went via fauvism directly to synthetic
cubism, without passing through a stage of analytical cubism.
Returning from Madeira back to Europe in May 1947, Skov traveled first to Paris where
he could examine, with renewed interest and understanding, the work by the cubist pioneers,
Braque, Gris, Leger and Picasso. This reinforced for him the validity of his own painterly
vision and artistic logic in pictorial representation. By late June, as French workers went on
general strike, Skov and his family proceeded to Brussels and from there went to
Copenhagen, which from then on became his permanent residence.
Skov’s paintings, collages and drawings from the following 30 years comprise the most
significant body of work in the cubist idiom by a Danish or Nordic artist13,14. Skov’s art
challenges the viewer to engage in active visualization of the image in order to generate the
intended three-dimensionality depicted in his still-lifes, landscapes and figures by introducing
spatial ambiguities into the composition, design, perspective, color and individual lines to
activate the viewer’s visual creativity. Thus the observer is invited to recreate the depicted
objects as non-static, dynamically evolving spatial experiences, in effect similarly to the
evolving images produced with the recently invented computer-generated 3-D stereograms.
Cubism may well require some visual adaptation and patience before it can be fully enjoyed;
but indeed so do 3-D stereograms, and to a somewhat lesser extent also impressionism,
fauvism, surrealism and expressionism, since they all depart in so many important aspects
from the conventional mode of seeing. Skov’s oeuvre demonstrates that cubism, far from only
being a transitory historical art experiment, indeed is a revolutionary new way of recreating
the image of three-dimensionality in objects and surrounding space. Skov’s work has been
shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Copenhagen, Odense, Paris, Nice, Chicago,
Sao Paulo and elsewhere.
Rasmus Skov has been recognized as a serious impressionist artist based on his early
artistic period, and later as a forceful fauvist painter with innovative vision. However, in view
of his uncompromising dedication to cubism over a thirty-year period, he will perhaps
foremost be seen as the principal Danish and Nordic cubist painter.
Ebbe R. Skov, Los Angeles, California
14 October 2002
1
Art Lexicon: Weilbach Dansk Kunstnerleksikon, [S. Hartmann, Editor], 7th Vol.,
Munksgaard, Copenhagen, Denmark, [2000], ISBN 87-16-11206-7.
2
Rasmus Skov Biographical and Critical Studies and Essays, Hetagon Press, [1994], US
LCC 97-93184, ISBN 0-9656702-0-1
3
Rasmus Skov and his Painting, N. S. Simon, Hagenias Inc., Copenhagen, Denmark,
1975, ISBN 87-980442-0-6.
4
History of Modern Art, H. H. Arnason, Prentice-Hall, Inc. and Harry N. Abrams, Inc.,
2nd Ed, 1977, ISBN 0-13-390351-6, US LCC 68-26863, p.129 pp.
5
Ibid.-1, p.130 pp.
6
Kai-Sass, Else [E. K. S.]: En interessant Maler - Rasmus Skov; Nationaltidende,
Copenhagen, 18* May, 1940
7
Anon. Art critic, [article entitled ýRasmus Skový], Le Figaro’*, Paris, 9 June*, 1938
8
Vinding, Andreas [ýVindený]: Rasmus Skov i Paris; Politiken, Copenhagen, 12 June,
1938
9
Nygaard: ýMaleren Rasmus Skový; Middelfart Venstreblad, Middelfart, 13 June, 1938;
and Jydske Tidende, Fredericia, 14 June 1938
10
Sardina, Lucienne: Le vernissage du salon des collectionneurs; LeJournal d’Nice*, Nice,
2* May, 1938
11
Pontoppidan, Knud [K. P.]: Udstillinger - Rasmus Skov, Politiken, Copenhagen, 8
March, 1939; Flor, Kai [K.-r.]: Amusing Painter - Rasmus Skov [w/illustration]; Berlingske
Tidende, Copenhagen, 12* March, 1939
12
E. Kai-Sass: ýEn interessant Maler - Rasmus Skový; Nationaltidende, 18* May, 1940;
and K. Flor: [ýKunstudstillinger - Rasmus Skový]; Berlingske Tidende, Copenhagen, 20*
May, 1940
13
Kai Flor, Kai: Fransk-dansk Kunst [Rasmus Skov]; Berlingske Tidende, 12 May, 1950
Gelsted, Otto [O. G.]: En forsinket kubist i Athenaeum [Rasmus Skov]; Land og Folk,
Copenhagen, 14* May, 1950
14
Carlsen [carl]: Ismerne paa dansk [Rasmus Skov], Ugebladet, Hoersholm, 31 July,
1991; and Lars Ege1und: Rigtig kunst er i Raadhushallen: Ringkjoebing Tidende, 27 Juni,
1994
[*] Ed. Note: Specific data so marked considered uncertain.
Copyright©Hexagon Holding, Copenhagen, Denmark
ISBN 87-89753-42-0