Summer Feature: POUL PEDERSEN, PARIS

June 12, – August 14, 2026.

(please scroll down for text in English)

Henover sommeren 2026 præsenterer SPECTA en række værker af Poul Pedersen.

Maleren Poul Pedersen malede bogstaver. Poul Pedersen arbejdede oprindeligt som hus- og skiltemaler, men blev i 1960'erne en del af en gruppe avantgardekunstnere i Århus. og begyndte at arbejde som kunstner. Et af Poul Pedersens absolutte hovedværker er Det Stjålne Alfabet. Over en årrække opsøgte Poul Pedersen berømte malerier for – til tider med stor offentlig opmærksomhed – at kopiere bogstaver på et lærred. Et A fra et maleri af Picasso, et H fra Robert Rauschenberg, et P fra Mondrian, et Q fra Asger Jorn osv. 24 år efter at have påbegyndt sit tyveri, færdiggjorde Poul Pedersen serien, 25 bogstaver, og han donerede derefter hele Det Stjålne Alfabet til Statsbiblioteket i Århus. Som Poul Pedersen sagde, havde malerne stjålet bogstaverne fra forfatterne, og nu havde han stjålet dem fra malerne og sendt dem tilbage for at bo blandt bøgerne.

I værket Fowal (2013) har Poul Pedersen citeret fra Johannes V. Jensens digt fra 1906 med samme titel. Hvert bogstav er malet på sit eget lærred - ialt 36 lærreder -, og typografien er fra hans eget Det Stjålne Alfabet.

Poul Pedersen blev kendt som ’Bogstavmaleren’ efter sit lange projekt Det Stjålne Alfabet og en lang række værker, hvor ord og leg med ordenes bestandele, bogstaverne, var et skarpt fokus.

Over årene har Poul Pedersen lavet andre alfabeter, heriblandt Det Gule Alfabet, og også Alfabetet uden bogstaver, som vises i SPECTAs sommerophængning. Dette alfabet består af 25 monokrome - gule, røde eller blå - lærreder, hvert 40 × 40 cm, hvor hver farve repræsenterer et træk ved bogstaverne: de rette linier, de skrå linier og de buede linier.

Igennem sin karriere har Poul Pedersen malet en lang række portrætter. Igen var det legen med bogstaverne som en række tegn, der var i fokus, og således var et portræt af f. eks. Hanne et maleri, som helt enkelt bestod af en komposition af navnets bogstaver.  Hanne, Linda, Sonja og NN kan ses i SPECTA
Poul Pedersens portrætter har stort set altid været portrætter af kvinder. En undtagelse er værket TRIP-TY-KON. Portræt af F.B. (Frances Bacon). Her, hen over tre lærreder, står typografien som meget stramt malede bogstaver, der opløser sig nedadtil. Som en kombination af Poul Pedersens egen tydelige og nærmest knapt malede bogstaver og en mere opløst og udflydende stil.

Poul Pedersen blev født i Lomborg i Jylland, men boede og arbejdede i Paris siden 1970’erne. Han var medlem af kunstnersammenslutningen Den Frie. Fra 1996 modtog Poul Pedersen Statens Kunstfonds Hædersydelse, og han blev i 2007 tildelt Eckersberg Medaillen og i 2020 Thorvaldsens Medaillen, begge uddelt af Akademiraadet. Poul Pedersen var repræsenteret af SPECTA i mere end 30 år.

Poul Pedersen gik bort sidst i februar 2026, 92 år gammel.

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Over the summer, SPECTA presents a series of works by Poul Pedersen.

The painter Poul Pedersen painted letters. Poul Pedersen originally worked as a house and sign painter, but in the 1960s he became part of a group of avant-garde artists in Aarhus and began working as an artist. One of Poul Pedersen's absolute masterpieces is The Stolen Alphabet. Over a number of years, Poul Pedersen sought out famous paintings to – at times with great public attention – copy letters onto a canvas. An A from a painting by Picasso, an H from Robert Rauschenberg, a P from Mondrian, a Q from Asger Jorn, etc. 24 years after starting this theft, Poul Pedersen completed the series, 25 letters, and he then donated the entire The Stolen Alphabet to the State Library in Aarhus, DK. As Poul Pedersen said, the painters had stolen the letters from the writers, and now he had stolen them from the painters and sent them back to live among the books.

In his work Fowal (2013), Poul Pedersen has quoted from the Danish poet Johannes V. Jensen’s poem from 1906 with the same title. Each letter is painted on its own canvas - a total of 36 canvases - and the typography is from his own The Stolen Alphabet.

Poul Pedersen became known as the 'Letter Painter' after his long project The Stolen Alphabet and a long series of works where words and play with the components of words, the letters, were a sharp focus.

Over the years, Poul Pedersen has made other alphabets, including The Yellow Alphabet and also The Alphabet Without Letters, which is part of this summer feature. This alphabet consists of 25 monochrome - yellow, red or blue - canvases, each 40 × 40 cm, where each color represents a feature of the letters: the straight lines, the slanted lines and the curved lines.

Throughout his career, Poul Pedersen has painted a series of portraits. Again, it was the play with letters as a series of signs that was in focus, and thus a portrait of, for example, Hanne, was a painting that simply consisted of a composition of the letters of the name. Poul Pedersen's portraits have almost always been portraits of women. An exception is the work TRIP-TY-KON. Portrait of F.B. (Frances Bacon), which can also be seen in this summer's feature. Here, across three canvases, the typography stands as very tightly painted letters that dissolve downwards. As a combination of Poul Pedersen's own clear and almost barely painted letters and a more dissolved, almost liquid style.

Poul Pedersen was born in Denmark, but lived and worked in Paris since the 1970s. He was a member of the Danish artists association Den Frie.
From 1996, Poul Pedersen received the Danish Arts Foundation's Honorary Grant, and in 2007 he was awarded the Eckersberg Medal and in 2020 the Thorvaldsen Medal, both awarded by the Academy Council. Poul Pedersen was represented by SPECTA for more than 30 years.

Poul Pedersen passed away at the end of February 2026, at the age of 92.