Munich Museum Receives Major Donation of prints from Kiki Smith

The German-born and New York–based artist Kiki Smith has donated her entire oeuvre of published prints to the State Graphic Collection of Munich. The gift comprises more than eight hundred works, including individual sheets, series, and artist books, dating from the mid-1980s to the present.

Born in Nuremberg in 1954, Smith, the daughter of sculptor Tony Smith, was raised in South Orange, New Jersey. She is a member of Collaborative Projects, INC. Established in 1977, the artist group is dedicated to creating assemblage art and was known for exhibiting outside of the gallery circuit in the 1970s and ’80s. Famous for creating pieces that examine various aspects of the human condition—such as Womb, 1986, a swollen uterus cast in bronze—as well as flora, fauna, and other elements of the natural world, Smith works in sculpture, printmaking, photography, drawing, and textiles.

Over the course of her more than four-decade career, Smith has had numerous solo shows at institutions such as the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva, the Whitechapel Gallery in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. In March, an exhibition of new works, “Murmur,” will open at Pace Gallery’s Twenty-Fourth Street location in New York.

The donation, which was announced during the museum’s annual press conference on January 24, will be celebrated with an exhibition set to open on February 14. The show, “Touch: Prints by Kiki Smith,” will feature more than 160 works.