About the artist - Heerup Museum

The visual artist Henry Heerup (1907-93) occupies a unique position in Danish art history. With his characteristic style, he was instrumental in shaping the contemporary art scene where particularly his innovative junk art and outstanding contribution to the promulgation of graphic art stand out as decisive high spots. Today, Heerup is remembered for his colourful, imaginative expression rich in symbols and for his charismatic personality. Many of the people who knew him still recall anecdotes from the memorable years in the garden at 96 Kamstrupvej in Rødovre.

In other words, Heerup, the man and artist, became national heritage – with a very special place in the hearts of children and adults alike. Although Heerup is so familiar to us, there are still plenty of undiscovered treasures in the story of his life and work. Therefore, this timeline is designed so that you can skip back and forth between biography and production. We have selected some Heerup highlights and found rare photos showing the child, the artist, the family man and, not least, Heerup the eccentric. Explore the different decades via the links below:

1907-10

Today, the artist Henry Heerup is especially known for his iconic paintings and lithos featuring elves on bikes and loving couples, familiar to many Danes. Fewer are familiar with the artist’s sculptural expression; the stone art and junk models he started out with in the fertile art scene of the 1930s.

Heerup was educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (1927–32). Even in his own time, it seemed amazing how an academically trained artist could develop an expression as free and spontaneous as was evidently the case. Heerup himself paid no heed to styles and trends, but embarked enthusiastically on a number of materials simultaneously. The junk models, created from found objects, emerged as a need for an ‘in-between thing’ in the rather rigid genre of modernism and Heerup’s first junk sculptures from reusable materials were made of homemade wax combined with a glass globe, a bottle top, a seashell, or similar.

Already as a teenager, the boy from the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen was fond of working out in the open and his love of nature combined with an open and unpretentious manner became his hallmark. In 1945, Heerup bought a plot of land in Rødovre and, for half a century, the garden was his permanent place of work and gallery and became a meeting place for many contemporary artists. His move from Nørrebro to the suburbs also reflected the general mobility of the working class and Heerup thus continued his artistic work in close proximity to the people he portrayed in his art.

During his long life, Heerup entered into a number of artistic contexts: associations such as Linien, Høst and, later on, the international CoBrA group, but he was, and remained, in a class of his own whose focus of attention was creative freedom.