Born in Copenhagen, Jacobsen studied painting at the
Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts under
Kræsten Iversen and
Peder Hald (1932-33). His earliest paintings were inspired by traditional Danish landscape painting under the influence of
Albert Gottschalk but after visiting Paris in 1934 when he experienced the work of
Matisse and
Picasso, he began to create
Abstract images of brightly coloured beak-shaped masked figures inspired by
ethnographic art. He went on to paint a series of works devoid of any motifs in which colour was the only criterion for expression. From 1940, he produced more masked images with geometrical shapes depicting teeth, eggs and other such features in pure spectral colours. His
Græshoppedans (Grasshopper Dance, 1941) depicts simplied figures in a work suggesting the culmination of high summer. ==Awards==