Summary
The CoBrA group was a short-lived but highly influential artist collective formed in Paris. Named for the three northern European cities that its founders originated from - Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam - its approximately thirty members became known for their vigorously spontaneous, rebellious style of painting that was heavily inspired by the art of children and the mentally ill. With their intuitive methods, loose, gestural marks and strong colors, CoBrA artists have used of some of the techniques of New York School style of the same era. Yet CoBrA art is more political, and is more sensitive to the huge devastation of the European cities and people after World War II. Their democratic approach to viewing and making was inspired and further expanded what we now call Outsider Art (work made by untrained artists, especially children and the mentally ill) as a serious movement in its own right.
Key Ideas
Most Important Art
Questioning Children (1949)
Questioning Children was actually the title given to two artworks by Appel, the other was a highly controversial mural painted in Amsterdam's town hall. The mural version was heavily criticized for making the civil servants who saw it every day uncomfortable by brutally reminding them of a war they had no desire to remember, and was thus covered with wallpaper for ten years after its creation.
Appel's distinctive use of found objects in what he called a 'primitivist' style had a strong influence on artists working later in the century, from the Ameri-Indian inspired sculptures of Jimmie Durham to the neo-expressionist paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
After Us, Liberty (1949)
After Us, Liberty is a key example of Constant's desire to express his political affiliations through his work - ideas that he later built on through his work with the highly politicized Situationist International group. It laid the foundations for contemporary artists whose paintings have a strong sense of their own politics, including the highly charged work of African American artist Nina Chanel Abney, which deals with controversies surrounding police brutality and William Powhida's drawings that reflect on the state of modern US democracy.
The Red Ship (1948)
Pedersen's paintings all had an intensely close relationship with his poetry - both were solidly grounded in the mysterious world of the ancient Gods of the north and revealed the Danish artist's fascination with what he called "fantasy art."
Le Museau Rouge (The Red Muzzle) (1949 - 50)
The contemporary influence of Heerup's distinctive sculptural techniques that embraced the inherent qualities of natural materials is felt in the carved forms created by British land artist Andy Goldsworthy. His work also set the stage for the Environmental art movement of the late 1960s, whose members pushed his critique of traditional sculptural forms into conceptual terrain by working entirely outside the traditional gallery space.
Fête Nocturne (Party at Night) (1950)
There has been a marked return to this kind of symbolism and joyful freneticism by contemporary American and European painters in the last decade. Some of the most prominent include the personal iconography in the paintings of US painter Eddie Martinez and the frenetically created, semi-human forms of New York based artist Anthony Miler.
Les Transformes (1950)
Atlan and Dotremont's use of words and poetry integrated with their visual practice was a major factor in setting the foundations for a diverse range of later artists to work in a similar vein. These include the text paintings of neo-Dada associate John Giorno and pop artist Ed Ruscha, as well as the handwritten poems on white cubes of contemporary Swedish artist Karl Holmqvist.
On The Silent Myth: Opus 4B (1952)
Jorn's concerns and technique demonstrated in On The Silent Myth draw obvious comparisons with American abstract expressionist Cy Twombly, whose post-CoBrA paintings were similarly influenced by Surrealist automatic writing and ancient mythology. Both men had an impact on contemporary artists who construct their own, mythical worlds with a folkloric feel, including the magical drawings and sculptures of British artist Charles Avery and the fantastical photographs of Korean artist JeeYoung Lee.