Alfred Jensen

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Alfred Jensen (1903–1981) was a Guatemalan-born abstract painter famous for grid-based compositions of bright triangles, circles, and squares painted in thick, textured layers. His work often includes calligraphy or numbers and is sometimes called “concrete” abstract art.

Life and training
Jensen was born December 11, 1903, in Guatemala City. After his mother’s death, he moved to Denmark to live with his uncle. He held various jobs before turning to art, studying at the San Diego Fine Arts School. In 1926 he went to Munich to study with Hans Hofmann, a major influence on abstract art. He later studied in Paris at the Academie Scandinave with teachers including Charles Despiau, Othon Friesz, and Charles Dufresne. He met Saidie Adler May, a wealthy art patron who supported him for many years.

Career in the United States
Jensen moved to the United States in 1934 and settled in New York in 1951. He developed an abstract style influenced by Goethe’s color theory and began to use checkerboards, diagrams, and calligraphy in his paintings. His travels and study of different cultures—especially Maya and Greek ideas—shaped his work, drawing on calendars, numbers, astronomy and natural patterns.

Notable works and moments
His major solo show at the Guggenheim Museum came in 1961. In 1979 he painted Great Pyramid, a large twelve-panel work. A major retrospective of his art was organized by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 1978, traveling to several museums. He also painted a mural for Time-Life in Paris in 1959.

Personal life
In 1963 Jensen married fellow abstract painter Regina Bogat. They traveled and painted together, had two children (Anna, 1965, and Peter, 1970), and settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, in 1972.

Death and legacy
Alfred Jensen died on April 4, 1981, in Livingston, New Jersey. His work is in many major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, LACMA, the Smithsonian, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The Alfred Jensen Estate is represented by Pace Gallery in New York.