Monika Kinley (24 August 1925 – 9 March 2014) was a British art dealer, collector and curator, particularly noted for her championing of the work and integrity of

outsider art Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates ...

ists. ''The Times'' called her "outsider art's champion".

Early life and education

She was born Monika Wolf in Berlin into an Austrian Jewish family, the daughter of August Wolf, a journalist and his wife Paula Wolf. In 1932, they moved to Vienna, but left in 1938 on the very day that German troops entered the city. They stayed in Prague until 1939, where her parents had to queue around the clock for two days to get the necessary stamps in their passports, arriving in Britain on 2 April 1939. Paula Wolf was already ill and died soon after their arrival. August Wolf was interned in an enemy aliens' camp, and Monika found herself, at the beginning of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, on a train to

Whitby Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a maritime, mineral and tourist heritage. Its East Clif ...

, where she stayed at a boarding school run by Anglican nuns. After studying Fine Art at the

University of Hull , mottoeng = Bearing the Torch f learning, established = 1927 – University College Hull1954 – university status , type = Public , endowment = £18.8 million (2016) , budget = £190 millio ...

, she eventually arrived in London. She met and fell in love with a Polish RAF pilot, and had a child, Peter, but the airman was killed in action. She then worked for the potter Dame

Lucie Rie Dame Lucie Rie, (16 March 1902 – 1 April 1995) () was an Austrian-born British studio potter. Life Early years and education Lucie Gomperz was born in Vienna, Lower Austria, Austria-Hungary, the youngest child of Benjamin Gomperz, a Jewis ...

, who was also a refugee from Vienna. After the war, she met and married painter Peter Kinley, who was her second cousin.

Career

Kinley was introduced to the London art scene by working on the bookstall at the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

in 1953 selling postcards. She worked in art dealing, first with

Victor Waddington Victor Waddington (1907 - 1981) was a British art dealer, active in Dublin and then London, an early advocate for the work of Jack Yeats and Henri Hayden. He was the father of fellow art dealers, Leslie and Theo Waddington. Career He started the ...

and then at the

Grosvenor Gallery The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé. The gallery proved crucial to the Aesthetic Movement because it provid ...

, and when she separated from Peter Kinley (died 1988) she began to deal on her own account from her home, a flat in

Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. ...

. She acted for

Prunella Clough Prunella Clough (14 November 1919 – 26 December 1999) was a prominent British artist. She is known mostly for her paintings, though she also made prints and created assemblages of collected objects. She was awarded the Jerwood Prize for pai ...

Keith Vaughan John Keith Vaughan (23 August 1912 – 4 November 1977), was a British painter. Biography Born at Selsey in West Sussex, Vaughan attended Christ's Hospital school. He worked in an advertising agency until the World War II, when as an intending ...

Leon Kossoff Leon Kossoff (10 December 1926 – 4 July 2019) was a British figurative painter known for portraits, life drawings and cityscapes of London, England. Early years and education Kossoff was born in Islington, London, and spent most of his early ...

and

Frank Auerbach Frank Helmut Auerbach (born 29 April 1931) is a German-British painter. Born in Germany, he has been a naturalised British subject since 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the School of London, with fellow artists Francis Bacon ...

, and as an adviser to museums and galleries. In 1977, Kinley met

Victor Musgrave Victor Musgrave (1919–1984) was a British poet, art dealer and curator. Described by David Sylvester as a 'true pioneer' Musgrave was the first gallerist to show Bridget Riley and was a champion of Art Brut. Musgrave ran 'Gallery One' between 1 ...

, the poet, art dealer and curator who claimed to be the first London art dealer not to wear a tie, and was to become her life partner. They did not marry, her marriage to Peter Kinley did not end until 1980. Victor had been married to the portrait photographer

Ida Kar Ida Kar (8 April 1908 – 24 December 1974) was a photographer active mainly in London after 1945. She took many black-and-white portraits of artists and writers. Her solo show of photographs at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1960 was the first of ...

until her death in 1974 and had already been dealing in outsider art for a decade by the time he met Monika. Victor and Monika continued to promote Kar's work, despite the separation."Monika Kinley; Collector and curator whose championing of 'outsider art' took her around the world in search of unusual pieces" in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...

'', 29 April 2014. Nexis online edition. Retrieved 6 May 2014. After meeting Victor, outsider art became the principal focus of Monika's dealing, curating and collecting. Together they put on exhibitions, raised funding and started their own collection. When Musgrave died in 1984, Kinley continued their work in creating an Outsider Art collection and archive. She made a number of journeys across the world searching for untrained and unknown people making paintings, sculpture and other objects. The

has details of her road trip to the American Deep South in 1987 as well as two trips to France in 1985 and 1994. In 2011, Kinley curated ''A Life in Art'' for the Plymouth Arts Centre. Her last exhibition was ''Artists Make Faces'' at

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery The Box is a museum, gallery and archive in Plymouth, Devon, England, opened in 2020 housing a collection of about 2 million items. The core of the building was previously Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery which closed in 2016. The building wa ...

in 2013.Plymouth exhibition Artists Makes Faces is last by Monika Kinley
, ''

Plymouth Herald ''The Herald'' is a Reach plc newspaper serving Plymouth. Its website and social media were rebranded as ''Plymouth Live'' in 2018. Its editor is Edd Moore. Print and online presence The newspaper's average circulation was 6,430 in the first ...

'', 27 September 2013. Retrieved 6 May 2014. In total she curated over 30 exhibitions of outsider art, both in the UK and overseas. In the

2013 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2013 were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrati ...

, Kinley was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(OBE) for services to the visual arts.

Legacy

The ''Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection'' of about 800 works was given by the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Trust to the

Whitworth Art Gallery The Whitworth is an art gallery in Manchester, England, containing about 55,000 items in its collection. The gallery is located in Whitworth Park and is part of the University of Manchester. In 2015, the Whitworth reopened after it was transfo ...

, University of Manchester, facilitated by the

Contemporary Art Society The Contemporary Art Society (CAS) is an independent charity that champions the collecting of outstanding contemporary art and craft for UK museum collections. Since its founding in 1910 the organisation has donated over 10,000 works to museum ...

. Previously it was on loan for ten years at the

Irish Museum of Modern Art The Irish Museum of Modern Art ( ga, Áras Nua-Ealaíne na hÉireann) also known as IMMA, is Ireland's leading national institution for the collection and presentation of Modern art, modern and contemporary art. Located in Kilmainham, Dublin, t ...

(IMMA) in Dublin. The collection includes items by

Henry Darger Henry Joseph Darger Jr. (; April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was an American writer, novelist and artist who worked as a hospital custodian in Chicago, Illinois. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page fantasy novel ...

, Madge Gill and

Albert Louden Albert may refer to: Companies * Albert (supermarket), a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic * Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands * Albert Market, a street market in The Gambia * Albert Productions, a record label * Albert C ...

Publications

*''Monika's Story – A personal history of the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Collection''. Musgrave Kinley Outsider Trust, 2005.

References

External links

OUTSIDER ART: Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection At Whitworth Gallery, Manchester
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kinley, Monika 1925 births 2014 deaths English art dealers English art collectors Women art collectors English curators Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United Kingdom Officers of the Order of the British Empire People from Berlin Alumni of the University of Hull Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom 20th-century English businesspeople