Kirby received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills Michigan in the mid seventies. While pursuing his Master's Degree, his teacher Mr. Richard Thomas, took the whole class of fifteen to London and Europe to study art. Previous to this trip, Kirby had a life long love of American and country antiques. The European trip exposed Kirby to European culture, architecture, art, and antiques. It was during this trip that Kirby changed directions on antiques and art. He was no longer happy with the antiques he grew up with at home. After the trip, Kirby read every book he could find on European and Continental antiques. Having a very good eye and natural ability made the transition from American to Continental antiques easy for him.
After receiving his degree, Kirby came back to his life long home of Louisville, Kentucky to work and collect European antiques. As stated earlier, Kirby has always had a good eye for antiques, and anything else, but there was still need for improvement. As luck would have it, Kirby met and became friends with two of the most knowledgeable antique dealers in his career, Howard Wagner and Louise Mendel. Howard Wagner of The Century Shop and Louise Mendel of The Strassel Company freely shared their knowledge and fine points of antiques to Kirby. The knowledge they shared with him was the equivalent of a PhD in fine antiques.
Still a collector of antiques, Kirby started to buy and sell antiques to high grade his collection. It was this pursuit of excellence that started him on the road to being an antique dealer. It did not take long for Kirby and everyone else to see his natural ability and knowledge in the field. Kirby knew he made the transition from collector to dealer, when he sold his most favorite possession, to make someone happy. Kirby also made the transition of collector to dealer in a very low key and out of sight manner. Always preferring to stay behind the scenes, Kirby has been a source of fine antiques for several shops, dealers, and collectors. It was not until Bittners hired Kirby for their antiques department did he come out from behind the scenes.
