Danish artist Carl Henning Pedersen dead

COPENHAGEN: Carl Henning Pedersen, one of Denmark's most famous painters and a founder of the COBRA art movement, has died aged 93, the mayor of a town home to a gallery named after the artist said on Wednesday.   

"It is with deep regret I have received news that Carl Henning Pedersen has died," Lars Krarup, mayor of Herning, said.   

Pedersen's works are known for their bright, expressionistic imagery. He was often described as a painter of fantasy and fairytale.   

He also helped found COBRA (an acronym for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam), a European avant-garde art movement from 1948-1951 that focused on semi-abstract paintings with brilliant colours, violent brushwork and distorted human figures inspired by primitive art.   

In January Pedersen donated 15 oil paintings and 25 watercolours from the 1950s to the 1980s to the national gallery, Statens Museum for Kunst, in Copenhagen, including two of his masterpieces: "Out in the Wide World" from 1988 and "Red Firebird" from 1972.