Henn Roode 1924–1974 Reclining Nude. 1964

Henn Roode’s work pushes the boundaries of abstractionism, offering very different and unexpected colour combinations. This land is like an experimental polygon, where new and new combinations and collisions take place in different zones. It is striking that in the 1960s it was not young artists who approached painting with such bold means, but authors who had graduated from the Pallas school of painting and were already in their 40s or 50s: Elmar Kits, Aleksander Vardi, Alfred Kongo or Henn Roode. In their works – and in this one as well – we can therefore see an interesting mix of Pallasian elegance and formal experimentation. The unmistakable disappears and is replaced by new layers of colour, but they are balanced and harmonious. We can see how Roode’s cold tones in the lower part of the painting move to the warm zones in the upper part of the painting, but there is no conflict between them, only a harmonious unity.