Per Kirkeby was a Danish artist often categorized as a neo-expressionist. He was well known for his monumental, semi-abstract landscape paintings and sculptures, deeply influenced by his own extensive travels, and interested in geology (which he studied at the University of Copenhagen in 1964). While Kirkeby was partly self-taught, a large part of what he learned early on as an artist was derived from his participation in the so-called Eks-Skolen (The Experimental Art School), the alternative but influential institution that colored the Copenhagen arts scene of the1960s.
Kirkeby's artistic practice was also grounded in a formidable working knowledge of art history & theory, which he ardently worked to expand upon and respond to both via his art and writing. This investment in the past and present of his cultural milieu gave him a stepping stone into many mediums— film, lithography, photography, set design, and monumental public art commissions.
His painting oeuvre includes landscapes, compositions on canvas and masonite, overpaintings, and a remarkable series of blackboard paintings consisting of chalk and blackboard paint on masonite, compelling precisely because of the implied frailty if the image.
Kirkeby’s works have been shown at many art exhibitions worldwide and are represented in many public collections such as Tate, London; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York, Centre Pompidou, Paris. Kirkeby taught as a professor at the Art Academy in Karlsruhe (1978–89) and Frankfurter Städelschule (1989–2000).
