Per Kirkeby (1938-2018) born in Copenhagen, studied natural history then geology. Throughout his life he has worked in a wide variety of artistic fields, publishing poetry, novels and art criticism even though he had become a well-known painter. Kirkeby is a believer in colour for building both form and contrast. It is the powerful, tormented colours determining the mass and balance of his compositions. They have a surging, lyrical quality, the most profound individualism in perfect harmony with the world he reprensents.

His pictures are highly demanding: they show nature as dense and savage, patterned with fault-lines, a violent, elemental presence.

For the 1992 Mouton Rothschild label, Kirkeby has drawn the outline of a gigantic wine glass, overflowing with dark red wine, set against a distorted landscape where the rays of the sun mesh and interweave with the colour and intersecting perspectives of the vines.