Maker/Artist
Kirkeby, Per
Danish painter, printmaker, and sculptor, 1938-2018
Born in Copenhagen in 1938, Kirkeby received a Master’s degree in arctic geology at the University of Copenhagen in 1964. He later studied at the Eks-Skolen (Experimental Art School of Copenhagen), established by the artist Poul Gernes in 1961 as an alternative to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and became involved with the Fluxus movement. Kirkbey made Pop-inspired works on masonite in the 1960s, and began producing blackboards and small-scale sculptures in the 1970s, but would not draw great attention until the 1980s, when he associated with German Artists Georg Baselitz, Markus Lüpertz, A.R. Penck, Jörg Immendorff, and Anselm Kiefer. Kirkeby represented Denmark at the 1976 Venice Biennale and later participated in Documenta VII and IX.
