Studier af Odense Borger Compagni´s fane. Notater og farveangivelser 1930 - 1936

This study for a banner of the Odense Citizen Company is rendered in pencil by Niels Larsen Stevns. Just looking at this piece, you can tell it’s not about the end result, it's about the thinking! I imagine the artist trying to get his head around all of the elements that are going to come together in the final piece; the figures at the top, the lettering running through the middle, the angles… I feel like the artist is mapping the territory. It’s like a rehearsal, a warm up. You can see how the artist is literally working things out. He’s feeling his way through. The whole sheet is full of tentative lines, as if he’s having a conversation with himself, figuring it all out, bit by bit. The notes are a great reminder that artists need to problem-solve and think, just like anyone else. It also shows how one thing leads to another, one mark inspires the next, and so on. He’s not working in isolation, he’s part of a long conversation with other artists.