The exhibition introduces to American audiences Danish artist Per Kirkeby (born 1938), one of Europe's most celebrated contemporary artists. With his Scandinavian sensibility Kirkeby articulates responses to the Northern landscape that will resonate with audiences in the Northeast. The artist's roles as geologist, filmmaker, architect, writer, and poet are reflected in this survey of approximately 45 works. Kirkeby's paintings and sculptures are constantly in flux, maintaining a dialogue between art and science. Organized by the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., this is Per Kirkeby's first American retrospective. After the Phillips Collection, Bowdoin is the only other venue hosting this important show.

This exhibition and related programming received major support from The A. P. Møller and Chastine Mc-Kinney Møller Foundation. Additional support is from Bath Savings Institution, the Danish Arts Council, Roy A. Hunt Foundation, Coco Kim and Richard Schetman P '13, the Becker Fund for the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Stevens L. Frost Endowment Fund, Lowell Innes Fund, Karl R. Philbrick Art Museum Fund, and the Katharine J. Watson Fund.

In conjunction with   Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Sculpture, the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum has brought together a selection of photographs of Peary Land by Robert E. Peary and Per Kirkeby illustrating these two very different men’s first encounter with the amazing landscape in the northernmost coast of Greenland.   Peary/Kirkeby: Views of Peary Land  is on view from May 29 through July 14 at the   Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum  at Bowdoin College.