Preben Hornung, 22.7.1919-3.8.1989, painter.

He visited both kunsthåndværkerskolen and the Art Academy in Copenhagen, in some years in the 40s, he went with K. Iversen and A. Jørgensen, but he found himself not in the correct place and characterized the later years at the Academy as "wasteful". The debut took place at the artists ' autumn exhibition in 1947. At the time cultivated Preben Hornung realistic motifs, landscapes, Garden pictures, interiors with figures and scenes from the city's outskirts, etc., and the method of painting was greatly influenced by the French late impressionism, especially Pierre Bonnard. 

A radical turnaround in the mode came in 1948 when he painted on the steel strip mill in Frederiksværk. From now on, the pictures were abstract constructive and based on a highly simplified colour grouped around the black/white. In the early 1950s  softened the straight constructive style, and a greater pictoresque expansion occurred after he found Langebro as motif, later played an railway booms and crossings in his motif, and the picturesque world language freede gradually, to motive mapping almost fell out altogether in the ' 60s, and development then moved around a lyrically picturesque language with much more finicky and limited use of shapes and colors.

From 1977 began Preben Hornung to paint portraits, and among his 30 portraits he painted, among other things portraits of Queen Margrethe II, 1981, 1983 and 1985.

In addition to great diligence on the painting area put Preben Hornung much emphasis on exploiting his talent in other visual art forms. Something of a breakthrough work was the great stained glass (12 x 14 m) which he made to sugar mills by refineries, administration building in Copenhagen in 1958, but besides this made Preben Hornung, a number of other decorations, stained glass at the technical school, Tomsgårdsvej, Kbh., 1966-67 and Haderslev katedralskole, 1973, a mosaic of Skanderborg municipality school, 1969, as well as picturesque decorations: City Hall of Rødovre Town Hall, 1959, student House at Aarhus University , 1964 (moved 1973) and frederiksværk County high school as well as several others.

Another important field of activity for Preben Hornung was scenography. From the mid-' 60s, he worked diligently with decorations for the theatre performances as Salome and Boris Godunov (both the Royal Theatre, 1966) and The marvelous mandarin (the Royal Theatre, 1967) as well as a host of other performances. For Dario Fos archangels never makes a contrivance (Gladsaxe Theatre, 1970) made h. decorations that prompted the critic Jens Kistrup to name him "the country's fanciest and most flexible Theater painter".

On the exhibition front selected Preben Hornung also his extensive artistic activity, among other things. by retrospective exhibitions in the Funen art museum Odense 1966 art and Art Association in Kbh. 1976, but it has also been to numerous exhibitions abroad. Preben Hornung is bulky represented in our art museums and public collections.