Morosum

Jean Moreaux & Else Raasum

Moreaux + Raasum = MOROSUM

Morosum is a dissemination project, and the initiative for this website and the book ‘Morosum’ we took with Else Raasum in 2011. We jointly wanted to create interest in Jean Moreaux’s and Else Raasum’s art with new generations of art lovers – both in France, where the artist couple lived for the last 25 years of their joint life, but especially in Denmark, where the knowledge of Raasum and Moreaux is still limited, because the couple only managed to hold a few exhibitions here. It is our impression that Raasum’s colourism and light calligraphic line, and Moreaux’s fabulous humour and biting political irony, speak to a Danish audience to a great extent.

Malene Ringvad is MSc. in Danish and Raasum’s niece, and she has followed the couple with interest throughout the years, though geographically and in terms of age. Peter Friederich is an architect, married to Malene and has known Raasum and Moreaux since 1986.

Since we are not specialists in art, our task is to present the works and the dialogue about the works that have taken place over the years, so that the viewer can go on himself discovery and draw conclusions. In collaboration with Raasum, we have photographed and recorded all available works, and we have gathered materials from many sources to shed light on the art that the couple created together.

A Presentation of the Artist Couple
Else Raasum og Jean Moreaux

Else Raasum and Jean Moreaux met in 1962 during their early studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. That meeting became the beginning of a lifelong union — both personal and artistic — with art as their shared and enduring centre of gravity.

Else Raasum (1942–2017) was Danish, educated at the School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen. Jean Moreaux (1938–2001) was French, trained at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Grenoble. From the outset, neither doubted that their lives would belong entirely to art. They moved through Europe during a period of profound transformation — both in art and in society — and always followed their own uncompromising path.

In 1964 they travelled to Amsterdam, having both been awarded scholarships at the Rijksakademie. Raasum’s was in printmaking, and Moreaux’s in painting. Only two years later, in 1966, they moved on to Brussels. Inspired by the Cobra movement and surrealists such as Dubuffet and Magritte, they experienced what could best be described as an artistic rebirth — freeing themselves from classical drawing and painting to pursue their own distinct artistic journeys.

Early on, both were deeply influenced by Asger Jorn and the Cobra circle, which came to shape their artistic vocabulary. Moreaux evolved a refined French interpretation of Cobra, infused with his own graffiti-inspired imagery, while Raasum’s lyrical, calligraphic works echoed the logograms of Christian Dotremont. Her ceramic reliefs, too, carried clear references to Asger Jorn.

From 1971 to 1977, the couple lived near Milan, where the local art association Est Ticino in Castano Primo developed a lifelong interest in their work. Both created major outdoor projects: Raasum’s included a large playground sculpture for a school in Vittuone, while Moreaux produced expansive wall paintings — indoors as well as out.

In 1978 they returned to France, settling in La Bussière, south of Paris, where they could work in peace.
Raasum remained faithful to her abstract, colourist and calligraphic expression, yet was constantly exploring new materials. Over time she worked with clay, acrylic paste, concrete, fibre cement, marble and alabaster — creating sculptures that combined weight and lightness, discipline and freedom. In France she continued to realise large-scale outdoor works and often travelled back to Italy for new commissions.

Moreaux, meanwhile, became increasingly fascinated by the culture of laughter and the carnivalesque, reinterpreting historical kitsch and satire in a personal idiom. Although his work traversed many genres, surrealism remained the underlying current — alongside cultural critique, political satire, humour and a vivid joy in painting and drawing. His artistic journey took shape across painting, drawing, comics, puzzles, sculptures and mannequins, culminating in his ambitious project Baroxysme.

Baroxysme was a passionate homage to the splendour and clichés of the Baroque — an exuberant celebration of art’s untameable imagination, and at the same time a fierce critique of patriarchal symbols of power. Moreaux was without doubt a great painter, and we believe that his playful humour and biting political irony continue to resonate far beyond France’s borders.

On 2 May 2001, at the age of 62, Jean Moreaux took his own life. He could no longer paint as he wished — perhaps an inevitable consequence of a life lived entirely for art. A few years later, in 2004, Raasum moved to Montfort-sur-Argens in Provence, into a townhouse overlooking vineyards and olive groves. She remained serene and full of life until the end, at peace with her choices. Despite being afflicted by arthritis, she continued to paint and sculpt. For Raasum, freedom was everything — the freedom to follow one’s own will.

We have named our dissemination project and the art book Morosum, after the joint exhibition Moreaux titled in Grenoble in 1999. That retrospective presented a selection of the couple’s works from 1963 to 2001 — Moreaux’s paintings and Raasum’s sculptures shown in dialogue with one another. The book is conceived in that same spirit.

As a complement to the chronological presentation of the artists and their works, both on this home page and in the book, we include two scholarly essays by art critic and postdoctoral researcher Jens Tang Kristensen: “The Colourist School – From Cobra to Raasum and Moreaux” and “Painting on the Edge of Everything – Jean Moreaux and the Baroxysme”. These texts place the couple’s artistic production within a broader art historical framework.

Further information about Else Raasum and Jean Moreaux, as well as upcoming exhibitions and activities, can be found on this homepage www.morosum.com and on Instagram-Facebook – jeanmoreauxartist and – elseraasum.

Malene Ringvad & Peter Friederich, Hellerup, Denmark