Development of the collection

The starting point
Louisiana’s collection takes its point of departure in the years after World War II. At that time, Danish artists like Robert Jacobsen and Richard Mortensen moved to Paris and forged contacts with like-minded sculptors and painters who are now represented in the collection. Examples that can be mentioned are Vasarely, Herbin, Dewasne, Albers, Soto and other artists who were close to Constructivism – Gabo, Bill, Rickey and Calder. Two major donations have strengthened Louisiana’s collection of Constructivist art substantially: in 1986 the museum received from the Riklis Collection of the McCrory Corporation in New York about 200 American and European works from the period after 1945, and from Celia Ascher, New York, Louisiana has received a study collection of drawings and gouaches from early Russian and European Constructivism.

A Danish artists’ group that included artists like Jorn, Alfelt, Carl-Henning Pedersen, Heerup and Bille began collaborating with Dutch and Belgian artists and in 1948 formed the CoBrA movement, which is represented in the collection by many works – including works by Appel, Alechinsky, Corneille and Lucebert. The museum’s Jorn collection was increased in 1999 by a fine donation of ten works, to which one more has been added later. The Jorn collection is today one of the museum’s absolute focuses, so in 2007 a permanent Jorn room was established. Other aspects of the museum’s collection of fifties art have been added with sculptures by Giacometti and Richier as well as works by Dubuffet, Tàpies and Bacon, who play a special role not least in the northern European perspective.

The art of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s
The art of the sixties in the Louisiana collection comprises on the one hand Nouveau Réalisme with works by Arman, Yves Klein, Fontana, Tinguely, César and Raysse, on the other Pop Art and minimalism, which can be experienced in striking works by Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Warhol, Dine and Oldenburg, and Ryman, Sol Lewitt, Judd and Flavin.

The group of American Color Field painters is similarly well represented at Louisiana. With nine large and four smaller works (most donated by Marcella Louis Brenner) the museum owns a considerable collection of paintings by Morris Louis, supplemented by works by Reinhardt, Rothko, Noland, Kelly and Stella. In addition, the collection includes works by several artists who made names as early as the sixties and in the next decade created a rich, nuanced oeuvre – Beuys, Kienholz, Mario Merz, Long, Oppenheim and Tuttle.

At he beginning of the 1980s, the new ‘wild’ painting had its breakthrough as an international movement that spread from Italy to Germany and the USA. The potential of painting was challenged anew, and figurative and expressive idioms were reintroduced. The Italians Cucchi and Paladino, German artists like Penck, Immendorf, Lüpertz, Baselitz, Polke, Richter, Kiefer and the Dane Kirkeby as well as the American New Image painters Salle, Fischl and Jenney are all represented at Louisiana by significant works.

With funding from A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal it became possible in 2007 for Louisiana to acquire the major work A Closer Grand Canyon (1998) by David Hockney. The 2 x 7.5 m work immediately placed Hockney at the centre of the museum’s collection and is an indispensable masterpiece in the Louisiana collection.

Contemporary art
The art of the 90s is richly represented, with works by, among others, Mona Hatoum, Pipilotti Rist, Sam Taylor-Wood, Sherrie Levine, McCollum, Gober, Muñoz, Gary Hill, Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley. The Louisiana collection is updated by purchases and donations so that it also reflects the newest tendencies and media in contemporary art. The latest acquisitions of works by among others Jonathan Meese, Julie Mehretu, Tal R, John Armleder, Thomas Demand, Wolfgang Tillmans, Olaf Breuning, Rineke Dijsktra, Morten Schelde, Superflex, Elmgreen and Dragset, Isa Genzken, Candice Breitz, Runa Islam, Jesper Just, Aernout Mik, Doug Aitken and Bill Viola span a wide range of media and artistic idioms.

The sculpture collection
Louisiana has a substantial collection of sculptures from the 20th century. Probably the strongest focal point in the collection is 24 works by the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, including a group of Venice Women, Standing Woman, Walking Man and The Large Head – works the artist himself wished to be exhibited together.

Besides the sculptures placed indoors in the museum’s exhibition spaces, around 60 works are presented in the park, where a few have been set up in special relationships with the buildings and should therefore be seen from inside, while others have their own exact space in the sculpture courts. Others require more space around them and are placed freely in the park. Here one finds works by artists like Arp, Bill, Calder, Max Ernst, Heerup, Henri Laurens, Miró and Henry Moore. Finally, artists like Serra, Trakas, Cucchi and Karavan have created site-specific sculptures for the Louisiana Park.