Peter Kalkhof was born in Stassfurt in 1933. His family stayed there until 1944, when they fled to Neundorf via Berlin, where his father would tragically pass away during the Battle of Berlin. In 1946, the surviving members of the Kalkhof family made it to the British occupation zone in Braunschweig and finally to Herrhausen am Harz.
Ever since childhood, Peter Kalkhof had expressed an interest in the aesthetic power of colour. It seemed self-evident that he would choose an artistic path by completing an apprenticeship as a colour chemigrapher in Braunschweig and studying painting at the Werkkunstschule there under Bruno Müller-Linow (1952-1955). From 1956 to 1960, he deepened his pictorial knowledge at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart (where he was awarded first prize for portraiture in 1959), concurrently studying lithography with Erich Mönch. A scholarship enabled him to continue studying at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1960 to 1961, igniting a love for the English capital. In 1961, he received a travel grant from the Slade School and toured the British Isles. After studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1962, he moved to and settled in London in 1963, where he would live and work for half a century. After working for Curwen Press (lithography) in London, he received a lectureship in lithography and etching at the University of Reading in 1964. From 1970 to 1999, he was a lecturer in painting at the Department of Fine Art there.
His experiences in the European capitals of art brought him into contact with avant-garde theories and practices that nourished his pre-existing fascinations for colour, shapes and the artistic power of man-made objects. Drawing inspiration from recent history, Kalkhof created the foundational principle of his art – ‘Colour and Space’ – keen to further the transcendental abstractions of artists like Malevich, Kandinsky and Rothko. The resulting paintings were bold compositions populated by straight lines, grids and circles which are filled with blocks or gradated colour. The artist mastered every step of his labour-intensive process, from the choice of materials to the home-made picture frames that would enclose his creations.
These creations were direct responses to the observation of the real world. Kalkhof therefore integrated extensive travel as part of his creative process. In 1969 (and several times in later years), he travelled to California and Arizona (the Grand Canyon), as well as to European countries; 1973 (1979 and 1992), Indonesia; 1974 (and 1986), Mexico and Yucatán; 1975, India and Nepal; 1976, Japan; 1977 (and again in 2006), China and Thailand; 1978, South America, especially Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and northern Chile; 1980, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji Islands (where he worked with the indigenous population), Hawaii; 1982, Egypt, Alexandria to Abu Simbel; 1985, the Soviet Union (Moscow, Novgorod, Leningrad) and South Africa; in 1990, he visited the border triangle of Burma, Thailand, Laos and the island of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand; 2004, Santiago de Chile and Easter Island in the South Pacific.
His first solo show was organised at the Annely Juda Fine Art Gallery in 1970, where, coincidentally, his last show would also be housed in 2012.
In 1997, the artist published a book on the jewellery created by his wife, jeweller Jeanne Thé, who had passed away the previous year.
Kalkhof joined her in 2014.
