The Art at Montmartre
Montmartre's famous and iconic mask wall created for the site in 1959 by the artist Mogens Gylling Hansen.
Mogens Gylling (TV) 51 years later at the restoration of the wall in 2010.
Mogens Gylling at the inauguration of the new incarnation of the mask wall during the jazz festival in July 2010.
The wall of the masks is recreated again in 2024 in the spirit of Mogens Gylling by bassist Mathæus Bech, who in 2010 as a 15-year-old helped him hang them.
Since Jazzhus Montmartre's opening in 1959, the club has been known for its unique artistic decoration. The iconic plaster masks on the left long side in particular attracted art lovers – and have been immortalised in thousands of photos and film recordings over the years.
Here is a brief history of the art in the house.
Mogens Gylling's wall of masks
The Mask Wall in Montmartre particularly attracted attention from around the world as a unique piece of art. The masks were created for the club in 1959 by the then only 23-year-old sculptor Mogens Gylling-Hansen. He was a member of the avant-garde artist collective 6+2, who hung out in Montmartre and often paid their bills with art.
The masks were a wild improvisation based on the classic theatre masks. In the 1970s, German TV made a broadcast about the masks in the 70s and their significance for the atmosphere in the club.
When Montmartre closed in Store Regnegade in 1976 and moved to Nørregade until 1995, the masks disappeared - probably scattered in all corners of the world with an unknown fate.
The masks were recreated in 2010
The driving force behind Montmartre's reopening in 2010, the journalist and entrepreneur who created, among others, NetDoktor and TV 2 Play, Rune Bech, however, persuaded the then 51-year-old Mogens Gylling to create a new incarnation of his famous work.
Mogens Gylling's ten new masks were hung on the wall by the artist himself during the Copenhagen Jazz Festival in July 2010 with the help of his son Tavs Gylling - an event that found its way to television and newspapers.
In connection with the noise protection of Montmartre in 2023, the uninsulated, nubbed wall on which the two sets of masks hung from first 1959 and since 2010 unfortunately had to be removed. The masks were then briefly scattered among various temporary decorations in the club.
Many guests called for the iconic work to be reassembled in its original place.
The masks will be reassembled in 2024
In October 2024, a new knurled back wall for the masks was hand-formed by bassist Mathæus Bech. As Rune's son, he assisted Mogens Gylling's son Tavs in 2010 as a 15-year-old high school student by helping with the hanging and witnessed Gylling's deliberations on the work's new composition. He was thus well prepared to hang them in Gylling's spirit as in July 2010.
An original mask appeared suddenly from the US
Independently and out of the blue, one of the original masks from 1959 appeared one day at Montmartre in the post from the United States. Included in the parcel was a short handwritten note stating that it was now "time for the mask to return home".
Nobody knows the story behind it or what happened to the other masks from 1959, but in November 2024 this one old original mask from 1959 has now got its own niche at the right side of Montmartre, just opposite the reincarnation from 2010.
An original mask suddenly appeared in a package from the United States with a note that it should "return home".
Jens Nordsø's large plaster relief was created for the club in 1959. It has survived everything and still hangs in Montmartre.
Jens Nordsø's plaster relief
Another of the members of artist collective 6+2 was Jens Nordsø, who, like Mogens Gylling, hung out in Montmartre with the great American jazz stars through the 60s.
For the opening in 1959, Jens Nordsø (b. 1930) created Montmartre's large famous cubist plaster relief. He was original
teacher and censor at the School of Artisans but later became especially known for his over 500 oil paintings and numerous record covers.
As the only work, the large relief has survived all the house's many openings, closings and renovations, and today still hangs in Montmartre - for many years behind the bar but now on the right long side of the concert hall.
Asmund Havsteen Mikkelsen during his ceiling decoration from 2012. It had to die in the soundproofing of the room in 2022, but in 2024 the artist recreated the work as a painting that hangs in Montmartre's bar.
Asmund Havsteen Mikkelsen's new work
In March 2012, Montmartre presented a 102 m2 abstract art decoration on the club's ceiling, supported by Realdania, and created by the Danish artist, Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen (b. 1977).
Like Gylling's mesh wall, the work had to be taken down in connection with the noise protection of Montmartre in 2022.
In November 2024, however, the pattern was recreated by the artist himself as a new unique painting that now hangs and adorns Montmartre's bar, building on a proud art tradition in the jazz house.
