Per Kirkeby - Samlingen

Among the best represented artists in the ARoS collection is Per Kirkeby. The collection is now on display in full scale - from 1960s pop-art paintings, watercolours from Greenland, monotypes to the later very large paintings.

Per Kirkeby is a sought-after artist, and his works are in demand from all over the world for major exhibitions. In the past year alone, ARoS has lent major works by Per Kirkeby to exhibitions in Athens, Brussels, Duisburg, Washington, as well as a number of exhibitions in Denmark, most recently at Ordrupgaard. We therefore believe that our guests should also have the opportunity to see an exhibition of major works from our own Per Kirkeby collection.

The exhibition is organised into five rooms focusing on different aspects of Per Kirkeby's forms of expression.

The first room presents the early Pop-art paintings from the 1960s, characterised by the use of silhouette figures, the fence motif for separation, the house and the cave, and usually painted in the format 122 x 122 cm.

This room also presents 2 new acquisitions to the collection. Per Kirkeby experimented a lot with his work, and in a side room, drawings, overpaintings, collages and painted clippings from magazines are displayed. The next room is dominated by the large monotypes from 1991, which are unique works made using a special printing technique and processing. Originally trained as a geologist, Kirkeby has participated in several expeditions to Greenland that have left their mark on his art. His Greenlandic motifs are displayed in a special room. The fifth room is the large room where Per Kirkeby's violent and powerful paintings, including Nach der Abnahme and Cossus Ligniperda, are presented.