Literature: Guy Atkins: “Asger Jorn - The final years 1965–1973”, Copenhagen, 1980, no. 1869, ill. full page in colours as fig. 181, p. 174. Literature: Lars Morell: “Asger Jorns kunst”, Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2014, ill. and described p.p. 169–171. Exhibited: “Asger Jorn”, Galleria d'Arte La Bussola, Turin, 1970, cat. no. 16. Exhibited: “Asger Jorn - 22 peintures 1945–1972”, Galerie Ariel, Paris, 1978, cat. no. 19, ill. full page in colours. Exhibited: “Asger Jorn”, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1982, cat. no. 49, ill. p. 86. Exhibited: “El Movimiento COBRA en la colección Karel van Stuijvenberg”, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, 1984, cat. no. 158. Exhibited: “18e Bienal de Sao Paolo”, Brazil, 1985, cat. no. 48 (label at the reverse). Exhibited: “COBRA - Speglad i Karel van Stuijvenbergs samling. As reflected by the Karel van Stuijvenberg collection”, Malmö Konsthall, 1986 and Liljevalchs Konsthall, Stockholm, 1987, cat. no. 131. Exhibited: “Cobra revisité - COBRA Liège 93 - Coll. Karel P. van Stuijvenberg”, Musée d'Art Moderne de Liège, Belgium, 1993, cat. no. 27, ill. in colours p. 183. Exhibited: “Cobra”, Cobra Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Amstelveen, The Netherlands, 1996 (label at the reverse). Exhibited: “50 anos des movimiento COBRA”, Centro de Exposiciones y Congresos, Museo Camón Aznar, Zaragoza, 1997–1998, cat. no. 47, ill. p. 106. Exhibited: “Grupo Cobra”, Pinacoteca, Sao Paolo and Casa Andrade Muricy, Curitiba, Brazil, 2000 (labels at the reverse). Provenance: Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris (label at the reverse). Provenance: Collection Maison Bernard, Caracas, Venezuela. Provenance: Karel van Stuijvenberg, Caracas, Venezuela. Provenance: Private collection, Denmark.

"What can I say About my artistic intentions, When I start a painting To draw a beautiful tree And end up with a white cat? One expects me to control all this But it’s not possible. It’s a never-ending struggle between my painting and me: It runs ahead, I never manage to conquer it, And finally Often it’s the painting itself Who conquers me"

Asger Jorn quoted in the catalogue for the exhibition at Galleria d'Arte La Bussola, Turin, Italy 1970, where the painting was first exhibited.

Lars Morell writes about the painting: “Life and the joy of being was a recurring theme in Jorn's production, and as a young man, he expressed this through a motif like the tree of life. Many of the paintings from the 1960s were marked by other emotions including suspicion between the sexes, death and the disappointment over the failed book project. 'La joie d'être' is the only major work from this period that expresses unconditional love and joy of being” (Morell p. 171).