Per Kirkeby: Bronze, Drypoint, Wood

Per Kirkeby (born 1938) is one of the most important figures in contemporary Scandinavian art. After receiving a doctorate in geology, Kirkeby joined the Experimental Art School in Copenhagen in 1962 and began to develop the visual idiom that he continues to use to explore the metamorphosis of nature in a variety of media. Kirkeby considers himself emphatically a painter. This context of painting informs an examination of his three-dimensional works from the early 1980s, which he produced with traditional sculpting techniques and cast in bronze. Over the course of his career Kirkeby has also produced a substantial body of prints. This catalogue is the first to juxtapose the artist’s drypoints and woodcuts with a series of his bronzes. A number of miniature woodcuts from the 1950s, which were believed to have been lost, have been rediscovered and are published here for the first time.