Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1925 Berlin, Germany

Died: 2014 Plymouth, Devon, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1939

Other name/s: Monika Wolf, Monika Kinley OBE

Biography

Art dealer, collector and curator, Monika Kinley (née Wolf), was born to an Austrian Jewish family in Berlin, Weimer Republic (now Germany) on 24 August 1925. Her mother was Paula Wolf, and her father, August Wolf, was a journalist. The family relocated to Vienna, Austria in 1932, only to flee to Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1938 as German forces invaded. Their desperate bid for freedom involved arduous waits for passport stamps, eventually leading them to the UK on 2 April 1939. Tragically, Paula died soon after their arrival. August was interned as an enemy alien in 1940, leaving Monika to navigate the tumultuous early days of the Second World War alone. With a label around her neck, she was evacuated from London in the Blitz to a boarding school in Whitby in north Yorkshire, where she developed a deep affection for the nuns who looked after her. August later joined her in the north, taking up work as a caretaker locally to stay close to his daughter. Kinley subsequently attended art school in Hull, but realising she did not wish to be a painter, left and moved to London, where she met a Polish airman. Their brief romance resulted in the birth of her son, Peter. Postwar, Kinley’s life intertwined with that of another Viennese refugee, the potter Lucie Rie, whom Kinley assisted. Eventually, she married her second cousin, the painter, Peter Kinley.

Kinley is remembered as an art dealer, collector, curator and a champion of outsider art. Her foray into the London art world began when she was working at a bookstall at the Tate in 1953, during an exhibition of Mexican art, when she encountered Joanna Drew from the Arts Council, the exhibition organiser, thus beginning a lifelong camaraderie. Kinley's transition into art dealing began with Victor Waddington (of Waddington Galleries, which opened first in Dublin and then in London) before she moved to the Grosvenor Gallery. Success came swiftly, the profitable exhibition of her husband Peter's work in New York and her own dealing enabling them to move to a flat in Hammersmith, with a view of the river. After their marriage dissolved, Kinley remained in the flat, pioneering the practice of dealing in art from her home, without a gallery, an innovative approach at the time. She garnered the trust and support of prominent artists, such as Prunella Clough, Keith Vaughan, Leon Kossoff, and the the Berlin-born Frank Auerbach. Respected by collectors and institutions alike, she served as an independent adviser for significant acquisitions for places such as the Rugby Museum and Art Gallery. One notable client was Douglas Hall, the inaugural director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, in Edinburgh, to whom she sold works by Auerbach and Roger Hilton.

Kinley developed a particular affinity for outsider artists – those self-taught and outside the mainstream – and passionately promoted their work. In 1977, Monika met Victor Musgrave, a curator and dealer, who had been married to the émigré photographer, Ida Kar, until her death in 1974, and who would become her life companion. This meeting marked a shift in her focus towards outsider art. Kinley's marriage to Peter lasted until 1980, and though Kinley and Musgrave did not marry, they continued to champion Kar’s photography. In 1979, Musgrave, alongside Roger Cardinal, curated an extensive outsider art exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London, a groundbreaking survey in Britain. Following Musgrave’s death in 1984, Kinley continued to promote and expand their collection. The Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection (established in 1981), comprising more than 1,000 pieces, was first housed in the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin for a decade, before it was eventually entrusted to the Whitworth Art Gallery at the University of Manchester, with the Contemporary Art Society’s assistance. Highlights from the collection include works by Henry Darger, Madge Gill, and Albert Louden, Johann Hauser, Pascal Verbena and Scottie Wilson. Works from the collection were presented in Outsider Art at Tate Britain in 2005.

Throughout her career, Kinley curated more than 30 exhibitions In 2011 she curated A Life in Art at the Plymouth Arts Centre, which presented her collection, showcasing both outsider and insider artists. In 2013, she curated Artists Make Faces at Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery. The starting point of the show was the year 1983 when Kinley and Musgrave invited artist friends to contribute to a small show in their new London home, entitled Artists Make Faces. Thirty years later this concept was revived, showcasing works by LS Lowry, Auerbach, Gilbert and George, Eduardo Paolozzi, and Lucian Freud, among others.

Kinley was awarded the OBE in the 2013 New Year's Honours for her contributions to the visual arts. Monika Kinley died on 9 March 2014 in Plymouth, England. In the UK public domain, correspondence and documents relating to the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection are held in the Tate Archive and photographs of Kinley are in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Related books

Monika Kinley, Artists Make Faces: 60 Works of Art by International Artists that Go Beyond the Portrait (Plymouth: Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 2013)
Michael Sinason, 'The discovery of an internal other in everyday life, in illness and in art', Psychodynamic Practice, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2007, pp. 7-24
Monika Kinley et al, Inner Worlds Outside (Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2006)
Monika Kinley, Monika's Story: A Personal History of the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Collection (London: Musgrave Kinley Outsider Trust, 2005)
Catherine Marshall, ed., Art Unsolved: the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection (Dublin/London: Irish Museum of Modern Art/Lund Humphries Publishers, 1998)
Ruth Lewis-Jones and Monika Kinley, Ingenious creator, exh. cat. (Nottingham: Angel Row Gallery, 1997)
Monika Kinley at al, Michel Nedjar and Pascal Verbena, exh. cat. (London: Reed's Wharf Gallery, 1994)
Monika Kinley, Outsider Art (Kyoto: Kyoto Shoin International Co., 1989)
Monika Kinley, In Another World: Outsider Art from Europe & America, exh. cat. (London: South Bank Centre, 1987)
Monika Kinley, Outsiders (London: Victor Musgrave Outsider Trust, 1987)

Public collections

Related organisations

Grosvenor Gallery (staff)
Hull College of Arts and Crafts (student)
Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection (co-founder )
Rugby Museum and Art Gallery (adviser)
Tate (staff )

Selected exhibitions

Other Transmissions: Conversations with Outsider Art (exhibition of works from the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection), Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (2020)
Artists Make Faces (curator), the Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery, Plymouth (2013)
A Life in Art (curator), Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth (2011)
OUTSIDER ART: Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection (curator), Whitworth Gallery, Manchester (2010–11)
Inner Worlds Outside (co-curator), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2006)
Art Unsolved: The Musgrave Kinley Outsiders Collection (co-organiser), Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (1998)
Ingeniouscreator (curator), Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham (1997)
Michel Nedjar and Pascal Verbena (co-curator), Reed's Wharf Gallery, London (1994)
In another world : outsider art from Europe & America (curator), South Bank Centre, London (1987)
A Hundred Years of Romanian art, 1870-1970 (curator), Somerset House, London (1978)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Monika Kinley]