The Keil Collection Heidelberg – Authenticity in a Flooded Market
Peter Robert Keil, born in 1942, belongs to the generation of Berlin’s “Junge Wilde” – a painter of enormous productivity, with companions such as Otto Nagel and a body of work that has been collected for decades. The Keil Collection Heidelberg has been a partner and patron of the artist for more than a decade. Over the years I have accompanied central projects for the Collection: exhibitions, art fair appearances, special auctions – and the most important task of all: the fight for authenticity.
Because that is precisely the challenge with Keil: the market is saturated. Countless works circulate in online trading whose provenance and authenticity are seriously questionable – an untenable situation for the artist, his collectors and the market.
Catalogue raisonné and certification
The answer to the forgery market is structure: the catalogue raisonné of Peter Robert Keil (WVPRK). Every work is examined twice – by the artist himself and by independent experts; only unambiguous originals are included, while doubtful works end up on a negative list. On the appraisal days in Heidelberg, collectors travelled in from all over Germany – from Berlin to Munich. In total we have helped more than 300 collectors have their works certified. Originals receive an authenticity stamp and a certificate.
AI against art forgery
The next step leads into my second world – digitalisation: together with the renowned US researcher couple Steven and Andrea Frank, I helped develop an AI system that certifies works by Peter Robert Keil with 98 per cent accuracy and detects forgeries. A neural network trained on the verified body of work – art history and machine learning at the same table.
Exhibitions, fairs, special auctions
Alongside the authenticity work, I have accompanied the Collection’s visibility: the anniversary exhibition “IchFarbe – ein Maler sagt ich” in the Ottheinrich Building of Heidelberg Castle marking the artist’s 80th birthday, the artist-in-residence programme with a survey show at the Xylon Museum in Schwetzingen, appearances at art KARLSRUHE, and special auctions featuring works from the Collection.
What this project shows
The Keil Collection brings together everything that defines my work: caring for a collection over many years, exhibition and fair projects, auctions – and the use of new technologies where they create genuine value. Protection against forgery is not a side issue; it is the foundation on which an artist’s market can function at all.
More on this: Collections & Estates · Digitalisation & AI · Collection website: keil-collection-heidelberg.de