O’REILLYS THE DESIGN SALE 26th - 29th October 2022

18 THE DES IGN SALE | Wednesday 26th – Fr iday 28th of October S P O T L I G H T O N A N A R T I S T Peter Robert Keil ( B . 1 9 4 2 ) Peter Robert Keil was born in Germany on 6th August 1942. His father was a blacksmith who, unfor tunately, Keil did not get to know well as he died during the second World War, and his mother was a creative woman who passed on her ar tistic talents to her son.Towards the end of the war, Keil and his mother made their way toWest Berlin and settled in Wedding, in the borough of Mitte. The war and its subsequent after effects continued to influence Keil’s life and career as he developed into a working ar tist. In 1954, Keil was taken under the wing of German ar tist and president of the DDR Academy of Ar ts, Berlin, Otto Nagel (1894 - 1967), it was perhaps the confines of post- war Germany and circumstance that brought them together. Keil began studying under Nagel and following him around the backstreets of Berlin at the age of fifteen, so when he joined the Academy of Ar ts the same year, he was already accustomed to different painting techniques, approaching colour and subject matter, as well as reflecting realistic imagery. Unfortunately, the relationship between Keil and Nagel did not last long as the building of the BerlinWall caused a separation between the two - with Keil in the West, and Nagel in the East. Keil, however, did not let this hinder his ar tistic vision. In the sixties, Keil had befriended Spanish ar tist, Juan Miró (1893 - 1983). The two met in Mallorca, a place whose vibrancy and life contributed greatly to the use of colour in Keil’s work. The use of vibrant colour in his works are also most likely a combating factor against the concrete jungle he moved to during the war, after he had grown up in the natural surroundings of rural Poland. The work we have by Keil in this auction shows a scene at Lake Wannsee, a seaside town near the area of Berlin he lived in during his youth.The colours he was taught by