We continue our parade of newly-received European art pottery with another Scandinavian participant, Jørgen Mogensen. He was born in Denmark in 1927 and began his ceramics career (after art school) as an apprentice at Royal Copenhagen in 1949. He worked with many of the Danish greats: Knud Kyhn, Axel Salto, Gerd Bogelund and Nils Thorsson (who was, in fact, Swedish but worked in Denmark).
His piece above, modeled in 1962, is at once primitive and futuristic. On the one hand, its heavy clay-slab walls are impressed with decorative “chops”—very much an ancient manner of ceramics embellishment like cuneiform or hieroglyphics. Meanwhile, on the other hand, the resulting overall effect is evocative of some electronic motherboard from a stylized, dystopian future. That Mogensen was able to combine the ancient with the futuristic is a credit to his artistry. The piece above, produced between 1975 and 1979, blends color, form, texture and sculpture in Jørgen Mogensen’s signature manner.
Tomorrow: more from our recent shipments of European art pottery.
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