COBRA (avant-garde movement)

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COBRA was a European avant-garde movement active from 1949 to 1952. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home cities: Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam.

COBRA was formed from an amalgamation of the Dutch group Reflex, the Danish group Høst and the Belgian Revolutionary Surrealist Group. The group held two large exhibitions, one at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1949) and the other at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Liège (1951). The primary focus of the group consisted of semiabstract paintings with brilliant color, violent brushwork, and distorted human figures inspired by primitive and folk art and similar to American action painting. Cobra was a milestone in the development of European abstract expressionism.

There is a COBRA Museum in Amstelveen, Netherlands, displaying works by Karel Appel and other international avant-garde art.

Auctioneers Bruun Rasmussen held an auction of COBRA artists on April 3 2006 in Copenhagen. It set records for the highest price for an Asger Jorn painting (6.4 million DKK for Tristesse Blanche) and for the highest amount raised in a single auction in Denmark (30 million DKK in total).

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