Winter

Artist Per Kirkeby Danish, 1938–2018

Date1999

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions73 3/4 x 67 in. (187.3 x 170.2 cm)
Frame: 80 x 68 in. (203.2 x 172.7 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of Mary and Jim Patton

Object number2014.20.31

On View

Not on view

Label TextComposed of bands of color and multiple layers of paint, Per Kirkeby’s painting references an abstracted landscape. The striations allude to geological formations, and the rhythmic patterns of light and dark mimic the tectonic movements of shifts, fractures, and fissures. Kirkeby was a geologist before he became an artist, and his extensive knowledge of the natural sciences permeates his work.

Depicting mysterious terrains, Kirkeby’s moody, atmospheric paintings visualize memories or dreams of landscapes rather than recognizable places. Natural elements are abstracted, reconfigured, and hidden behind texture, detail, and brushstroke. In this painting a primal landscape—water, land, sky—is suggested but never completely represented by an artist deeply in tune with the natural world. “Painting is laying layer upon layer,” Kirkeby says. “It is like the geological strata with cracks and discordances. But each new layer, however furious, is always . . . colored by the underlying one.”
[L. Dougherty, 2014]ProvenanceCreated Frankfurt or Copenhagen, 1999; collection of the artist; [Michael Werner Gallery, New York, 1999]; [Knoedler & Co., New York, 1999]; Mary and James R. Patton Jr., Great Falls, VA, May 1999; given to NCMA, 2014.
Published ReferencesB. C. M. [Barbara C. Matilsky], entry for Winter in Space, Abstraction and Freedom: Twentieth-Century Art from the Collection of Mary and Jim Patton (Chapel Hill: Ackland Art Museum, 2001), no. 12, illus. (color) 53.
Exhibition HistoryNew York, NY, Knoedler & Co., “Per Kirkeby: Recent Paintings,” April 27–June 11, 1999, no. 7, illus. (color).

Chapel Hill, NC, Ackland Art Museum, “Space, Abstraction and Freedom: Twentieth-Century Art from the Collection of Mary and Jim Patton,” September 9–November 11, 2001, no. 12, illus. (color), 53.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “The Patton Collection: A Gift to North Carolina,” March 28–August 23, 2015.
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