A comprehensive look at a memorable period in the celebrated painter and printmaker’s life and career, Robert Kipniss: Paintings and Poetry, 1950–1964 is the result of his many arduous months revisiting his more-than-half-a-century-ago writings, poems that were stashed away and essentially forgotten. “Some of the poems are straightforward, some are infused with surreal irony, and some are angry,” says Kipniss in his candid and honest preface. Thoughtful and articulate from conception to completion, his never-before-published poems are choreographed with his early paintings in this monograph’s contemplation of these influential and foundational fourteen years. “When I stopped writing [in 1961] my vision was no longer divided between word-thinking and picture-thinking: these approaches had merged and in expressing myself I was more whole,” reflects Kipniss in his retrospective musings.

This written and visual account of previously unpublished poems and critically acclaimed early paintings includes two astute and illustrative essays that further engage the reader in the evolution of the artist’s prolific oeuvre. His prints, drawings, and paintings are remarkable for their eloquence and refinement, earning him international recognition for his expansive landscapes and smalltown vistas, as well as quiet interiors and intimate still lifes. Thoughtful and articulate from conception to completion, his never-before-published poems are choreographed with his early paintings.

Readers of this seminal volume are all the richer for catching a glimpse of an intensely personal segment of this accomplished artist’s private history. In an unambiguous assessment, Kipniss elaborates, “The most significant insight that arose in this undertaking...came when I began to collate reproductions of my paintings of the 1950s. I could clearly see that my work in the two mediums were from very differing parts of my psyche, and that while they were both in themselves completely engaged, they were not in any way together.”

Kipniss’s work can be found in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The British Museum, London, the Albertina, Vienna, Austria, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Morgan Library, New York, among others.

Marshall N. Price is Chief Curator and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art. He was formerly curator of modern and contemporary art at the National Academy Museum, New York. Based in Santa Fe, award-winning poet Robin Magowan is the author of 10 books of poetry as well as travel collections, an autobiography, and books on bicycle racing.

The Berkshire Eagle, July 28, 2023, Justin Piccininni: "In 1982, New York Times art critic John Caldwell praised Kipniss' brutal realism, which conveys "alienation, isolation, even despair." This can be seen in his sparse wintry landscapes, with simple houses devoid of human presence, trees with long skinny branches and angular leaves painted in monochrome. Caldwell went so far as saying Kipniss' "world appears to exist without direct sunlight," as his scenes nearly exclusively take place in the peculiar glow of dawn or dusk."

Contents: 5
Preface. Comments by the Artist and Poet | Robert Kipniss: 7
Introduction. Ut Pictura Poesis: The Coming of Age of Robert Kipniss | Marshall N. Price: 11
Paintings & Drawings: 19
Remembrance and Prophecy: The Journey of a Poet-Painter | Robin Magowan: 87
Poems: 89
Selected Chronology: 131
Collections, Exhibitions, and Awards: 133
Acknowledgments: 141
Photography Credits: 142
Copyright Page: 144

The early paintings of Robert Kipniss tell a visual story of transition and maturation by a developing artist who, for the first decade or so of his professional life, was simultaneously pursuing the sister arts of painting and poetry. For the young Kipniss, the two endeavors were parallel ones not unrelated to each other. He found equal amounts of expressivity, solace, escape, and evocative imagery in the written page as in the painted surface—albeit in different ways and, ultimately, with divergent results. Kipniss had made a commitment to painting and poetry at age 19, and during the first decade of his adult life he developed, refined, and ultimately codified his artistic language in both arts. . . . when the Greek poet Horace introduced the phrase ut pictura poesis—“as in painting, so in poetry”—in Ars Poetica, he was articulating an inherent connection between the two arts. Although the imagery, demeanor, and sensibility of Kipniss’s early paintings differ considerably from those of his poetry, clear connections may be drawn between them. . . . The poems were an outlet for Kipniss’s anger and dissatisfaction with various aspects of his life; his paintings have an aspirant quality about them. Both, however, share an interest in the infinite nuances of symbolism. As differing expressions of one young man, they may be understood metaphorically as representing two sides of the same coin.