James Kielkopf  (1939-2024)

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James (Jim) Kielkopf was born in St. Paul on July 13, 1939.  He served four years in the US Navy after graduating from Cretin High School in 1957.  He started working as a visual artist after graduating from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) in 1965.   Jim received a McKnight Artist Fellowship and numerous other awards and commissions during his life.  He also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

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Jim loved to work in abstraction, as both subject and effect, and he said “I came to realize that my abilities and interests lay in observing what happened on the surface I was painting or drawing.  I started using a procedure, where I would predetermine and then change as I learned from what I first put down.”

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Jim also said “I find it somewhat untrue to use the word "work" to describe the main activity of my day-to-day routine, and I realize that some people find it difficult to use the word "art" to describe what I do.”

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Kielkopf exhibited at the Walker Art Center Biennial, 1964 & 1966; Minneapolis Institute of Art Biennial, 1967; Interchange, Dallas Museum Fine Arts, Texas, 1972; and the Martin Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, in the 1970s.  His works are in the permanent collections of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota Museum of American Art, Minnesota History Museum, Weisman Art Museum, and many institutional, corporate, and private collections.  

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Jim passed away peacefully in his St. Paul home on July 10, 2024.

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