Kiki Kogelnik (1935-1997)

Kiki Kogelnik was an Austrian-American artist who lived and worked in New York from the early 1960s onwards. Today, she is best known for her pop art-style paintings, stencils and prints. However, many of her favourite themes and motifs can also be found in her sculptural works, initially in ceramics and later in glass. During the 1990s, Kogelnik created works combining painting and ceramics, which she called “Expansions”. Her growing visibility led to opportunities to work with master craftsmen in new media, including bronze and glass. This enabled her to transform her two-dimensional pictorial works into vibrant three-dimensional sculptures.

Kiki Kogelnik was posthumously awarded Austria’s highest honour in the arts, the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art. The Belvedere Museum in Vienna, Austria, held a major retrospective of her work in 1997, the year of her death. Subsequent solo exhibitions have been held at Kunsthalle Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway (2017); Modern Art Oxford, United Kingdom (2015); and Hamburger Kunstverein, Hamburg, Germany (2012).