Born in Guatemala in 1903, Alfred Jensen first studied fine art at the San Diego Fine Arts School and then under Hans Hofmann at his celebrated Schule für Bildes Kunst in Munich before settling in New York. It was in the city that he met his lifelong friend Mark Rothko and, great patron and collector of Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist art, Saidie Alder May.

In the 1950s Jensen’s created a unique form of geometric abstraction linked to mathematics, astrology, the Mayan calendar, architectural drawings from ancient cultures

and various studies linked to scientific data and the universe. In ‘Directions in Cool Color, Directions in Warm Color’, Jensen turns to colour theory, repeating the same pattern with different colour combinations to produce varying optical effects. Applying theory to pattern was a crucial element of Jensen’s practice, with the artist influenced by Goethe using black and white and the prismatic hues of red, yellow, green, blue and violet. In the present painting Jensen applies thick impasto paint in a checkerboard effect, giving no illusion of space or light.

1961, the year Jensen created ‘Directions in Cool Color, Directions in Warm Color’, was an important year for the artist, with the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York holding a major retrospective of his work. His works from this period are now in such institutions as MoMA, New York, (‘Solar Centrifugal Force (Outward) East’).