Peter Hedegaard

Peter Hedegaard
Peter Hedegaard
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Born	August 25, 1929; Copenhagen
Died	June 3, 2008; London
Nationality	Danish-British
Occupation	Artist

Peter Hedegaard born in Copenhagen on 25 August 1929 and died in London on 3 June 2008, was an artist known for his abstract paintings and prints, characterised by their dominance of colour and geometric forms. Based in the UK since 1935, he had solo exhibitions in London, Oxford, Birmingham and Manchester; in Copenhagen, St-Paul-de-Vence and Bochum; and participated in group exhibitions in the UK and France. He produced paintings and prints during the early 1960s to 1976, after which he stopped making art. Since his death, Hedegaard’s work has gained renewed attention: British curator, Nigel Prince, featured the painting Green and Yellow (1974) in the group exhibition This could happen to you: Ikon in the 1970s at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham in 2010; and the artist’s estate gained representation from The Rocket Gallery, London, which held three solo exhibitions of Hedegaard’s work (2010, 2013 and 2019). Works by Hedegaard are represented in British and international public and corporate collections in the UK including The British Museum; The Victoria and Albert Museum; The UK Government Art Collection; The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; The RISD Museum, Providence, USA; The Mercedes-Benz Collection, Stuttgart; The Citibank Art Collection, London; and Alliance Bernstein, New York.

Hedegaard married Isolde Mascher in 1961; and they had two children, Eliza and Stephen. Hedegaard actively supported the Campaign Against Museum Admission Charges in the UK in 1970.

Early Life and Education

Peter Hedegaard was born in Copenhagen on 25 August 1929 to Sven Niels Hedegaard and Güdrun Christiana.

In 1935 Peter Hedegaard moved to England with his parents. He attended Caldicott School in Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire. From 1943 to 1947, he joined Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey. While there, his parents relocated to Saint-Paul de Vence in the south of France.

In 1948, Hedegaard completed a six-month diploma in French at the University of Grenoble. Shortly afterwards, he travelled through Argentina, Chile and Peru, including a visit to Machu Picchu. From 1948 to 1951, he studied Modern Languages at Hertford College, Oxford, where he also developed a lifelong love of classical music. After graduating, he spent a few months in Paris. From August 1952, Hedegaard lived and travelled in the US and Canada for three months. Shortly afterwards, he revisited Paris where he recalled seeing Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings at the city’s museum collections.

On 4 October 1954, Hedegaard enrolled on the three-year Certificate Course in Decoration at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. He studied a wide range of subjects including art and architecture from the classical period to the 19th century; sciography; heraldry; the chemistry of paint; and the Golden Section. His diploma portfolio included interior studies in gouache. He undertook the Post-Diploma Certificate Course in Decoration from 30 September 1957 to 2 July 1958; and was awarded the National Diploma on 1 August 1958.

Work

In the autumn of 1958, Hedegaard began working for the Austrian-Hungarian architect and interior designer, Laszlo Hoenig, who had established a business in Mayfair, London. Hedegaard left after six months to pursue a full-time career as an artist.

Hedegaard’s first solo exhibition (Peter Hedegaard) was held at the Galerie Hybler, Copenhagen, from 31 March to 14 April 1962. The exhibition of 17 oils and several gouaches was received positively (1962, 9 April, Jan Zibrandsten, ‘Gallerierne rundt (galleries around) Peter Hedegaard’, Mandag (Copenhagen).

In summer 1962, while caring for his mother until her death, Hedegaard became aware of ‘Konkret’ art, a Danish abstract movement influenced by early Constructivism, notably the work of the Linien II artists’ group whose work he had seen in Copenhagen in 1958 (Linen igen, Copenhagen: Winkel og Magnussen). He also admired the work of Bauhaus pioneers, the German artist and teacher, Josef Albers and the Swiss artist, designer and architect, Max Bill.

In 1963, he had a joint exhibition (15 February to 3 March) with Danish artist Else Fischer-Hansen and the Norwegian artist Sigmund Schjelderup Pedersen at the Kunstforening, Oslo.

In 1963, the Hedegaards moved to a new house with a larger studio space in Belsize Park, north London, where they mixed with artists, Peter Kalkhof, Michael Kidner and Edwina Leapman. From 1963 to 1964, Hedegaard briefly experimented with painting Op Art style oils and gouaches of colourful circular and other geometric forms. He soon abandoned this style for a deeper exploration of relationships between colour and form. He was much influenced by the psychoanalytic approach of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung; and Karen Horney.

During the early to mid 1960s, Hedegaard joined the radical left-wing organisation, The Artists’ International Association (AIA) in London, participating in group exhibitions and acting as a committee member.

In 1966, Hedegaard exhibited geometric ‘circle’ paintings alongside ceramic sculptures by the Swedish ceramicist Hans Hedburg at the Musée Municipal in Saint-Paul de Vence (Peter Hedegaard, 25 February to 12 April). The opening event was attended by Princess Margrethe of Denmark.

From the late 1960s, Hedegaard focused further on the study of colour and form, with particular interest in how eliciting emotional and sensory responses. He was interested in colour theory, from Isaac Newton and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; to the early modern theory of the American artist-teacher Albert Henry Munsell, pioneer of the ‘Munsell Colour System’ in 1905. Influenced by Munsell’s approach to hue, brightness and saturation of colour, Hedegaard experimented with subtle gradients of colour in his own paintings of geometric forms. He was also drawn to the relationship between music and colour, and the listening of classical music was central to his painting practice.

His geometric compositions of the 1960s are characteristic for their circular forms, ‘tilted’ squares and trapeziums. By the 1970s, he experimented with repeated abstract compositions of ‘graded steps’, circles and sequential forms, basing many of his works from photographs he took of urban spaces and textures. He is also known for experimenting with ‘shaped’ canvases of composite parts. A major work of this period is Green and Yellow (1974) which he exhibited first at the Consort Gallery, Imperial College London in 1974; and then at the John Moores 9 Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool in 1974, for which he was recognised with an award.

Solo exhibitions

1966 Peter Hedegaard, Musée Municipal, St-Paul de Vence
1967 Exhibition of Painting and Prints, Architectural Association, London
1968 Paintings and Prints, Galerie Wilm Falazik, Bochum
1969 Silkscreen Prints and Paintings, Curwen Gallery, London
1970 Paintings, Gouaches and Silkscreen Prints (curated by Nick Waterlow), Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford
1971 Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
1974 Consort Gallery, Imperial College London
1974 Gallery 273, Queen Mary College, London
1975 Recent Paintings, The Hoya Gallery, London
1976 Paintings, Oxford Gallery, Oxford
1976 Extensions, Peterloo Gallery, Manchester
2010 Paintings & Screenprints, Rocket Gallery, London
2013 1970s Gouaches, Rocket Gallery, London
2019 Retrospective, Rocket Gallery, London

Group exhibitions

1963 Else Fischer-Hansen - Peter Hedegaard - Sigmund Schkelderup Pedersen (Oslo Kunstforening, Oslo)
1964-69 AIA Gallery, London
1966 Magdalene Street Gallery, Cambridge
1966 Arts Council Open Painting Exhibition, Ulster Museum Belfast
1966 Print Exhibition, Vallauris, France
1966 Print Exhibition, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
1967 Curwen Gallery, London
1967 Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh
1968 Peterloo Gallery, Manchester
1969 Sammlung Helmut Klinker, Städtische
1969 Kunstgalerie, Bochum
1970/1972/1974/1976 Bradford International Print Biennale
1970 Camden Artists ‘70 - Colour Extensions (curated by Michael Kidner), Swiss Cottage Library, London
1973 First British International Drawing Biennale, Middlesbrough
1974 John Moores Exhibition 9, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1975 Estampes Anglaises Contemporaines, Galerie Arnaud, Paris
1976 Thumb Gallery, London
1976 AIR Gallery, London
1977 Musée Municipal, Saint-Paul de Vence
2010 This could happen to you, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
2015 Finished/Applied, Rocket Gallery, London
2015 Gouaches, Trunk, London
2019 From Southern German Modernity to International Contemporary Art, Daimler Art Collection, Stuttgart
2019 Screenprints, Paul Smith Gallery, London

Printmaking

In 1965, Hedegaard began making screenprints. The Italian artist, Manfredo Borsi had introduced him to the master printer, Henri Baviera, whose studio was based in Saint-Paul de Vence. Hedegaard commissioned Baviera to produce five screenprints of two of Hedegaard’s designs. Isolde Hedegaard became an active participant in the screenprinting process, completely self-taught. She was responsible for the technical production of almost all of Hedegaard’s prints until 1975. British print curator and writer, Pat Gilmour, described their artistic collaboration as ‘an ideal print-producing partnership - Peter Hedegaard invents the composition and mixes the colour, his wife cuts the stencils and editions the prints.’ (1969, October, Arts Review, Col XXI, No. 21. Pat Gilmour).

In the mid-1960s, Hedegaard met the Swedish artist and printmaker Birgit Skiöld. She co-founded The Printmakers’ Council in the UK in 1965; and in 1968, she and her husband, Peter Bird, Director of Bradford Museums and Galleries, established the influential Bradford International Print Biennale. Hedegaard exhibited prints at the Biennale between 1972 to 1976.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Hedegaard’s prints and gouaches were sold in London by Curwen Prints Ltd, Editions Alecto Collectors’ Club, Francis Kyle Gallery, Thumb Gallery, William Weston, Lucy Milton and Anthony Dawson. Outside London, his prints were sold by the Peterloo Gallery (Manchester); Queen Square Gallery (Leeds); Compendium Galleries (Birmingham): and Richard Demarco (Edinburgh).

Internationally, his works were sold by the Robert Elkon Gallery in New York; Galerie Heseler in Munich; Galerie Pierre Hautot in Paris; Gallery East in Seattle; and Van Straaten Gallery, Chicago.

Later years

In the autumn of 1976, Hedegaard had his last solo exhibition during his lifetime at the Oxford Gallery in Oxford. From the end of 1976, he stopped making art, due to a combination of factors including a shift of focus onto family matters; supporting his father at the end of his life, and then from 1979, dealing with his late father’s estate and business affairs in France. He transferred some of his creative interests to music, chess and garden design. Between 1994 to 1997, Hedegaard began making expressionist pastel drawings of plant forms, inspired by the plants in his own garden in London.

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