Alfred Jensen

was born in Guatemala City in 1903, as the son of a Danish father and a German-Polish mother. His mother died in 1910 and Jensen was sent to school in Denmark where he was looked after by an uncle. From 1917 to 1926, he worked as a sailor and sailed the oceans of the world. In 1919, his father died, and in between sailing Jensen ran a farm in Guatemala.  After spending some time at the San Diego Fine Arts School, he signed on with a German ship, with the intention of going to study with the painter Hans Hofmann, who had founded an academy in Munich. He then lived in Paris from 1927 to 1937, working with artists such as Charles Despiau, Charles Dufresne and Auguste Herbin. 

The latter introduced him to Goethe's colour theory, which was to play a central role later in his life. In 1938, he settled in the United States. He had found a niche for himself in New York by 1951 and became good friends with Mark Rothko and, a little later on, with Sam Francis. 

Following in Goethe's footsteps, Jensen made his first chessboard motif paintings. In 1961, he held his first major solo exhibition – in the Guggenheim Museum, NY, no less. Soon afterwards, he came under the influence of Maya hieroglyphic writing, which became a second theme interwoven in his work. 

From 1970, themes such as physics and astronomy were added, and a little while later the I Ching and the teachings of the Delphic Oracle, as well as the teachings of Shang, based on number series from the fourteenth to eleventh century BC. The many diagrams that form the basis of Jensen's painting are the result of this. He believed in the universal order of human affairs and in an eternal order of those of God.