Per Kirkeby

The work of the Danish artist Per Kirkeby (1938–2018) ranged widely, from painting and sculpture to literature and film. He trained as a geologist, graduating from the University of Copenhagen in 1964, while at the same time studying at Eks-skolen, a radical art school founded as a counterweight to the conservative teaching of the Royal Danish Academy. Geology never remained a side note for Kirkeby, who took part in several research expeditions to Greenland. The layers and forms of the earth run through his paintings as well. Over his career, Kirkeby also published more than fifty books and directed over thirty films. He was a professor at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts and the Städelschule in Frankfurt, and his work is held in collections including Tate, MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Center Pompidou. His awards include the Finnish Ars Fennica Prize, which he received in 1993.