Stalke Collection

Stalke Collection spans more than fifty years of dedicated collecting. It all began in 1974, when Sam Jedig acquired his first piece — a painting by the Icelandic artist Gunnar Örn, then living in Copenhagen. This purchase laid the groundwork for Galleri Jedig, founded in 1982 at Øster Allé 22, which later became Galleri Nørregade / Stalke Project Space, and in 1987 evolved into Stalke Galleri.

A key moment came in 1996, when Jedig’s mid-1990s exhibition of Olafur Eliasson rekindled his relationship with Gunnar Örn, leading to a long-standing artistic collaboration that continued until Örn’s passing in 2008.

Today, the collection features works by most of the artists who have exhibited at the gallery. It has a strong focus on American Conceptual and Minimal Art, represented by pivotal figures such as William Anastasi and Dove Bradshaw, whose contributions introduced avant-garde ideas to Danish audiences.

In the 1990s, the collection broadened to include works from Copenhagen’s experimental Baghuset milieu, featuring artists such as Lars Bent Petersen and Jes Brinch, alongside key Danish figures including Thomas Bang, Albert Mertz, Torben Ebbesen, Thorbjørn Lausten, and Margrete Sørensen — highlighting the collection’s national importance.

More recently, it has welcomed Cordy Ryman from New York, whose practice combines casualist abstraction, reclaimed materials, and sculptural interventions in architectural spaces, as well as the Danish artist Aske Sigurd Kraul, whose materially based works reflect contemporary artistic developments since the 2010s.

The collection is brought to life through the gallery’s On Viewprogram — ranging from solo retrospectives and thematic presentations to collaborations with guest artists. Additionally, works are regularly loaned to museums and institutions both in Denmark and abroad, reinforcing the collection’s significance in academic discourse and public engagement with art.

Installation shot from On View exhibition at Stalke