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Peter Keil
Abstract Expressionist
Click Here for examples of Keil's work
Click Here for the Circus Series
Click Here to view Peter Keil's video

Peter Robert Keil is one of Germany's best known contemporary painters His expressive paintings with their impressive choice of colors and dynamic shape are particularly popular He is one of the Grossen Wilden of Berlin and he shares this name with famous artists like Elvira Bach , Rainer Fetting and Georg BaseIitz. Keil mainly uses oil-based paints and a mixture of oil and acrylic on canvas His repertoire focuses on the human form.

His work does not serve to illustrate the illusions of a candy-colored reality or the emptiness of vain beauty He is fascinated by people on the fringes of society, the stories of those who have been pushed too far, those characters who chose an existence on the other side of society. His inspiration is based on his view of man as an essentially social being. His works are displayed in places ranging from art exhibitions, private collections and auction houses to offices and hotels.

Peter Robert Keil was born in August 1942 in now Poland. After the death of his father in World War II, Peter and his mother set out to make their way through the chaos of battered Germany to West Berlin. There he grew up in the neighborhood of grey blocks of houses, the typical backyards and the trees of the park nearby.

He admired the works of the Expressionists and with particular zest he enjoyed Picasso. The expressiveness of the vivid colors opened a way to temporary escape from the dullness and depression of everyday life in post-war Germany and he started his first attempts as a visual artist. At first he studied and copied Picasso's style. The public response was very positive and buyers encouraged him to develop his talents further. He learned many painting techniques from his teacher and friend, the painter Otto Nagel, with whom he explored Berlin. They often painted from nature and he learned to see his neighborhood with the eyes of an artist.

During several stays on the island of Mallorca in the late fifties and early sixties he met Joan Miro who repeatedly invited him to his studio in Palma, high above the Gala Major bay. There he learned that "a picture begins to enforce and to reveal itself under the artist's brush during the act of painting". The freedom of rhythmic structuring, the verve and brightness of the vocabulary of forms lead him partly off his realistic way of seeing and depicting.

His apprenticeship carried the artist to Paris, where he moved into a small studio close to the Place de la Bastille. Here, Keil learned to keep his art free of nature's constraints and picked up a dynamic and spontaneous brushwork, distancing himself even more from realism. At night he came into contact with scene characters, among them alcoholics, drug addicts and street walkers, who serve him as models for his sketches. This environment was reflected in his pictures and portraits, which already bear his individual trademark, and by their coarseness, dynamism and loud coloring they are a record of the early phase of West German neo-expressionism.

London was Keil's next place of residence. There he rented a small flat in Earlscourt. After a years stay in London he found his way back to Berlin where he now lives with his wife Bo for several months of the year, and for the rest of the year they prefer the rural life in Bavaria. He also maintains a residence in Hollywood Florida.

Keil studied at the Berlin Academy of Fines Arts. The academy brought about some important acquaintances and contacts, He met Baselitz, Fetting, Lupertz and Schonebeck and made friends with Salome, Schmettau and others. Keil is a contemporary witness of the consequences of the erection of the Berlin Wall and man's inhumanity toward mankind. He paints typical Berlin street and bar scenes, women in various poses and again and again his beloved Lake Wannsee with its sailing boats, children going for a swim and sun-seeking bathers. Meetings with artists inspire him to paint some very expressive pictures in rich, gaudy colors.


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