United States – 1950

Peter Kitchell American Artist: B. 1950 – Peter Kitchell believes that “Color is like music. One color is meaningless by itself, it takes its meaning from its relationship to other colors, from the rhythm of its structure.” The child of two architects, Kitchell was primed to be an artist at an early age and encouraged to paint. After the family moved from Exeter, NH to San Francisco, Kitchell attended art classes for children at the Museum of Modern Art and De Young Museum beginning at five and was exposed to modern abstract painting by the age of nine. In the late 60’s he studied with Rolf Penn, a former Bauhaus student of Kandinsky and Klee. By 1970 and technically proficient, Peter Kitchell decided that he could learn more from travel than school and set off on a journey that took him through Europe, Northern and Central Africa, the Caribbean and across the United States. Shortly thereafter, he went from the museums of Europe to the raw desert culture of Morocco, travelling throughout the African continent. Kitchell painted or drew every day, teaching himself watercolor while living among the Berber and Tuareg tribes. His large scale watercolors reference nature, both primal and pastoral, influences of the landscapes and cultures he has experienced, the light and color absorbed during those travels. Kitchell’s paintings “…are not really abstract,” but rather, “are objects, pictures of things. The paintings are elements of a story that unconsciously suggest ‘something.’ I am successful if I can figure out what they suggest in a universal way…creating a picture story.” Kitchell shows consistently at several galleries and his works are included in the prestigious corporate collections of ATand T Dean Witter & Co., ITEL, Stanford University, Bank of America, ARCO, Westinghouse Corporation and IBM Corporation.