SAY IT WITH FLOWERS.

By Tom Jorgensen, reviewer at the “Ekstra Bladet”, a Danish popular daily and editor of the “Kunstavisen”, a monthly national magazine about topical art.

FROM FLOWER-JENSEN TO FLOWER-KROEJER.

This may rightly be said of the fact that 13 large Kroejer paintings now replace a series of flower paintings created by the great painter of the golden age I. L. Jensen (1800-1856), whose paintings are sold for staggering sums in Danish and particularly American sales rooms.

Jensen’s paintings have been hanging in the so-called Flower canteen in the headquarters of the insurance company Tryg in Ballerup since 1989, but before that the paintings were hanging in the general headquarters of the insurance company Baltica, in the Bernstoff Mansion, in Bredgade, Copenhagen, neighbouring Marmorkirken (the Marble Church) and Amalienborg Palace. The paintings have most likely been purchased by heir presumptive Ferdinand and Princess Caroline who inhabited the mansion from 1829 until their deaths in 1863 and 1881, respectively.

The Danish Forest and Nature Agency has decided that I. L. Jensen’s paintings are national treasures and they are now moved back to the Bernstorff Mansion.

Tom Kroejer’s 13 pictures bring a breath of fresh air into the Flower canteen of Tryg; I. L. Jensen is a finical and accurate painter, Kroejer’s paintings surge with sumptuous imagination and vigour.

The giant canvasses have all been painted following a month’s stay in Capri, where he has made thorough colour sketches. Back in Denmark he has then “translated” the sketches into those oil paintings that are going to please the numerous employees of Tryg in the future.

That which characterises Tom Kroejer as a painter is an unerring sense of colour and composition. The canvasses, which are often large, vibrate with joy with the multiplicity of life.

Kroejer travels a great deal, and a corner of the world does practically not exist where he has not been inspired. Temple gardens of Japan, dusty market places of Morocco, pulsating city-life of New York, bathing beauties of Miami, elegant cafes of Paris, even a façade of a pizzeria of North-West quarter of Copenhagen.

As Tom Kroejer says it himself, his goal as a painter is to show the diversity and beauty of the world. The fact that people like his paintings on a large scale is the best recommendation there is. In that sense, Kroejer is a pronounced popular painter.

It was not always like this, though. During the 1960s and 1970s, Tom Kroejer participated in a number of different happenings, manifestations and political meetings of protest together with artist rebels such as Jens Jorgen Thorsen and Jorgen Nash, and Kroejer did live in Nash’s collective of artists, the Drakabygget, just as he both participated in the much talked-about Anti-Documenta in 1972 and has experienced being imprisoned in a Norwegian jail – together with the now very famous tapestry artist Bjorn Noergaard, as it happens.

At that time, however, Tom Kroejer was already completely his own and his never failing sense of humour often conflicted with the political correctness.

Today the 59-year-old Kroejer is a known familiar face to the foreign as well as the Danish art scene, he is based in Galerie Egelund in Copenhagen where he is exhibited separately every year. Moreover, in 2002, Tom Kroejer has become a member of Corner after having been a member of the Groenningen for a number of years.

With the permanent hanging of Tom Kroejer’s colourful flower paintings, Tryg, fronted by managing director Hugo Andersen, has shown an interest in contemporary art,

which is in keeping with the increased cooperation between the business sector and graphic arts. An initiative that no doubt is appreciated by the employees of Tryg.

More savoury pictures than Tom Kroejer’s are hardly found in any canteen.