Per Kirkeby was born in Kopenhagen on 1 October 1938 as the son of an engineer. In 1962 Kirkeby joined the avant-garde art group "Den Ekperimenterende Kunstkole". Per Kirkeby had his first exhibition in Kopenhagen in 1963, his debut as a lyricist followed in 1965. Kirkeby made his first short film "Brigitte Bardot", the first of his 25 films, in 1668, influenced by Andy Warhol's film theory. In 1978 he was appointed professor at the Academy of Arts in Karslruhe, in 1983 he went to the Berlin University of the Arts. Exhibitions like documenta 1972, 1982, 1992 or the Venice Biennale in 1980 and 1982 as well as museums like the MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum in New York or the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven showed Kirkeby's work on a regular basis. In the 1980s Kirkeby worked on monolithic brick sculptures. Kirkeby then became a professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt/Main in 1988. The artist was also assigned to create eight big bronze sculptures for the German upper house building in 2000.