World Art Day is an international celebration of art, declared by the International Association of Art to promote awareness of creative activity worldwide. The first World Art Day was held in 2012, on April 15th, a date chosen in honor of Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday in 1452. As a symbol of world peace, freedom of expression and tolerance, da Vinci is also a testament to the influence of the Fine Arts in other fields.

This year we celebrate the World Art Day with a virtual CoBrA exhibition. The CoBrA Group was founded at Café Notre Dame in Paris in 1948 by the modernists Asger Jorn, Karel Appel, Corneille, Alechinsky, Dotremont among others. The name of the group was formed by the initials of the members' home countries' capital cities: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. 

The manifest of the CoBrA Group proclaimed the importance of free artistic expressions as a counter-reaction to the abstract art and the geometry of cubism. Their aim was to “release the art from the norms and styles of the Western culture”. These avant garde artists revolutionized the post war art scene with their vivid colors, twisted perspectives and childish motifs. 

In 1951 the CoBrA Group agreed to disband. However their revolutionary impact still remains in today’s art. Their approach became an important link between the rational and the irrational, the abstract and the figurative. 

The members of the CoBrA Group continued to work as individual artists. Most of them have attained international renown and are today represented at museums worldwide.