Théo Kerg

Théo Kerg studied at Beaux-Arts de Paris. The recorded working language is French. Work by Théo Kerg is recorded in the collections of Finnish National Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, National Museum of Archeology, History and Art and Museum de Fundatie.

Kerg was born to a schoolmaster and his wife in Niederkorn, in south-western Luxembourg and attended school in Esch-sur-Alzette. He moved to Paris in 1929 to study at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, the Sorbonne and the Institut d'Art et d'Archéologie. From 1932 to 1933, he studied at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, Germany, under the supervision of Paul Klee and Oskar Moll. He returned to Luxembourg in 1936 to become an art professor. In 1943, following the German invasion of Luxembourg, Théo Kerg resigned from his position. He was however subsequently arrested in 1944 by the Luxembourgish allied militia, and kept in prison for 15 months as a preventive measure. He left Luxembourg in 1946, aiming to settle in Venezuela, but stopped in Paris where he illustrated a book by Paul Eluard. He permanently settled in Paris, and spent the last three years of his life in Chissey-en-Morvan, in Burgundy, where he died in 1993.

Théo Kerg took part in over 300 group exhibitions and over 150 individual exhibitions. He founded a movement he called "tactilism", whereby a work of art would appear differently depending on the lighting, the atmosphere and other environmental variables. In Luxembourg, he is remembered especially for his stained-glass windows at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Cents (1975).