The painting “Gul-rød bajads” (Yellow-red buffoon) was painted in 1973 in Bovbjerg, where Carl-Henning Pedersen and his wife Else Alfelt had a studio. In 1958, Pedersen received the Guggenheim award and the couple used the winnings of 1,000 dollars to purchase a spartan studio on the west coast of Jutland. The couple mainly worked on their large mosaic projects at the studio in Bovbjerg, but Carl-Henning Pedersen in particular liked to retreat from city life in Copenhagen and often travelled to Bovbjerg alone. The magnificent, rugged scenery suited him well, and the peace and quiet was conducive to highly productive periods when canvas after canvas took shape.

It was during one of his productive stays in Bovbjerg that the artist painted “Gul-rød bajads”, a relatively simple but colourful and beautiful fairytale painting.

It was a mature Carl-Henning Pedersen (aged 60 at this point) who painted this picture, an artist in full control of his resources and with the experience to let go and quickly place the motif in a composition, which indicates a connection between the figures, yet also leaves space for the beholder's own imagination and interpretation. In the same way, the title “Gul-rød bajads” only hints at the possible content of the painting, but does not give it all away. In the original sense of the word, “bajads”, which means “buffoon” in English, refers to a comic figure in Italian popular comedies, and figuratively a person who tries to amuse others by acting in a comical or ridiculous fashion.

Carl-Henning Pedersen's paintings teem with “buffoons”, and the word often features in the artist's titles, but even where this is not the case, his large smiling, naive masked figures are interpreted as “buffoons”, who makes us smile and imbue the scene with an unpretentious glow.

“Gul-rød bajads” is Carl-Henning Pedersen at his best; brightly coloured, spontaneous, energetic and imaginative. (Hanne Lundgren Nielsen)