'Abstract Composition' by Svend Saabye

'Abstract Composition' by Svend Saabyeartist: Svend Saabye (Danish 1913 2004) medium: oil on canvas dimensions: 88 1 2 x 63 1 2 cm frame size (approx) signed circa 1960s presented in a new hand finished beveled timber frame AU $2800 (approx US $1210 1175 EUROS 189,000 yen 990 GBP for exact current conversion visit xe. com) artist bio Svend Saabye (1913 2004) was a Danish painter celebrated for his lyrical abstraction, richly coloured compositions, and major decorative commissions. Born on

artist: Svend Saabye (Danish 1913-2004)

medium: oil on canvas

dimensions: 88 1/2 x 63 1/2 cm frame size (approx)
signed 
circa 1960s

presented in a new hand finished beveled timber frame

AU $2800 (approx US $1210 / 1175 EUROS / 189,000 yen / 990 GBP - for exact current conversion visit xe.com)

artist bio
Svend Saabye (1913 – 2004) was a Danish painter celebrated for his lyrical abstraction, richly coloured compositions, and major decorative commissions. Born on 25 July 1913 in Nyborg, he was the son of Eberhardt Saabye, an engineer at the Danish Biological Station, and Ernestine Brandt.

Saabye’s early landscapes, still lifes, and figure paintings of the 1930s were executed in a dark, moody palette, in marked contrast to the lighter tones of his 1940s works. Influenced by artistic currents from France, he developed a lyrical abstract style characterised by rhythmic, imaginative figuration, saturated colour, and tightly structured composition. This approach is evident in his Provençal landscapes and watercolours, where foreground vegetation is often rendered as a loosely abstract lattice framing the scenery beyond. His close engagement with nature—shaped in part by his passion for hunting and fly fishing—brought recurring motifs of birds, fish, insects, rivers, and mountains into his work.

From the 1960s onwards, Saabye embraced free, abstract reinterpretations of his subjects, often painted with a palette knife to create sharp-edged, zigzagging colour fields. Among his most significant public works are the frescos at Codanhus in Frederiksberg, featuring a monumental bear’s claw motif and migrating birds, and the sandblasted concrete reliefs at Copenhagen’s Rigshospitalet. These reliefs evoke visions of beaches, stones, and rippled seabeds, combined with symbolic forms of birds and fish, executed in a geometric-abstraction style. His subtle use of black-grey, grey, and off-white tones enlivened architectural spaces with texture and light.

Saabye trained at the Technical School in Odense in 1932, studied briefly under P. Rostrup Bøyesen in 1933, and attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts’ Graphic School in 1939. His travels were extensive, including extended stays and work periods in France and Norway, as well as visits to England, Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Greenland, and Italy.

Over his career, he exhibited widely in Denmark and abroad, with notable solo shows at Fyns Kunstmuseum, Vejen Kunstmuseum, and international venues such as Gallery Tokuma in Tokyo. His works are held in Danish museum collections including Fyns Kunstmuseum, Ribe Kunstmuseum, Aarhus Kunstmuseum, and Trapholt.

In addition to painting, Saabye published several books on fly fishing, including Fisk og flue (1952), Lystfiskerliv (1952), and Om fluefiskeri (1958). As one of the first painters of his generation from Funen to break with the region’s naturalistic tradition, and a founding member of the artists’ association Germinalen, Saabye played an important role in shaping mid-century Danish modernism.