Per Kirkeby

Born in 1938 and died in 2018 in Copenhagen, Per Kirkeby is one of the most influential artists on the contemporary Scandinavian scene. In 1961, he discovered Kurt Schwitters' Expressionist landscapes, which had a major influence on his painting practice. His first exhibition took place in 1964, at the same time as he obtained his doctorate in geology. His work bears witness to this rich cultural background, proposing landscapes that may verge on the abstract, but whose structure, worked in superimposed layers, remains faithful to a scientific reality. His work has found its way into a number of prestigious collections, including the Tate Modern in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the MoMa in New York. Per Kirkeby has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Tate Modern in London in 2009, the Phillips Collection in Washington DC in 2012 and the Almine Rech gallery in Paris in 2018.