Robert Kipniss

ROBERT KIPNISS

Paintings and Poetry · 1950–1964

ROBERT KIPNISS Paintings and Poetry · 1950–1964

preface by

Robert Kipniss

introduction by e s s ay b y

Marshall N. Price

Robin Magowan

T H E A R T I S T B O O K F O U N D AT I O N n e w y o r k l o n d o n h o n g k o n g

Robert at the easel, Petersburg, VA, 1958.

Contents p r e fac e

Comments by the Artist and Poet Robert Kipniss

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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

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POEMS 89 Selected Chronology

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Collections, Exhibitions, and Awards

133

Acknowledgments 141 Photography Credits

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p r efac e

Comments by the Artist and Poet

I

n late 1950, at the age of nineteen, I decided to make poetry and oil painting my life’s full-time pursuits. Over several months, I had become more and more deeply engaged in both of these arts, and I knew I had found a commitment that could fulfill me to an extent I had never expected. I was sure and comfortable in continuing these two passions, which I did with equal intensity until 1961, when circumstances compelled me to make the difficult choice of which art I would stay with and which I must abandon.

In 1959, I worked as a night manager of a bookstore, and there was often time to write a few lines (after painting all day in my studio). But after a surprising success with an exhibition of my paintings, I left the bookstore. Sales of my work had become fairly steady and all was well for a while, but when my family started growing, my low prices —which had helped my work sell—now meant the income from these sales was no longer enough to support us. Getting another part-time job was unavoidable, and in 1961, with the job I found, there was not enough time for both painting and poetry.

My third solo exhibition, which had been accompanied by good reviews, had made me known and respected as a young painter, but there had not been even a hint of success at publishing my poetry. It was also obvious that, while I had been tenacious in looking for a gallery for my paintings—knocking on gallery doors many, many hundreds of times over those six years between my second and third shows—I had made only one (unsuccessful) effort with my poems—sending a volume to a publisher in 1953—and had not tried since.

In retrospect, it seems odd that for those next eight years, roughly 1953 to 1961, although I was writing every day, I never thought to let anyone read my poems. While I found the act of writing poetry painful—no doubt because I was writing about the anger and the darkness within me—I found only pleasure and excitement in painting. In the very act of putting paint on canvas I found an exuberant and unrestrained exploration of form, color, texture, and emotion—all of it intense and thrilling. Visual compositions

7

While uncommon in his oeuvre, the figure was not entirely absent from Kipniss’s early works. The figural compositions tend to be much less lyrical than his landscapes and evince a somber, sometimes confrontational dynamic that is manifested in such paintings as The Ritz Brothers (p. 31) and Miss Rose (p. 33). Void of any rapport between the figures and, indeed, containing an almost aloofness among them, these works hint at the personal isolation the artist felt around this time.3 The most arresting of these figural compositions are Kipniss’s self-portraits. One of the earliest examples, painted when the artist was twenty-two years old, Self-Portrait (p. 27) shows the artist starkly illuminated and in a somber and confrontational pose. His gaze seems to teeter between a distant remove and a determined resolve.

Over the next five years, these self-portraits would provide a fascinating look at the developing artist, culminating with several works late in the decade. In Self-Portrait: Petersburg, Virginia (facing page), Kipniss, at center, stands in shadow between the viewer and the landscape in the distance. As a young man, Kipniss would take nocturnal walks, observing and recording the nighttime scenery and relishing the solitude found therein.

This self-portrait shows the artist alone in darkness, looking back along a small-town street as if he has been captured in the middle of one of these walks. The scene evokes Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Evening”: Slowly the evening draws on its coat Held out to it by a row of ancient trees: You gaze: and the landscape splits in two, One part lifting skywards, while one falls, Leaving you not quite part of anything, Not quite so dark as the house, the silent one, Not quite as surely invoking the eternal, As that which turns to star, each night, rising — Leaving you (indescribably, to unravel) Your anxious, immense, and ripening life: So that, now bounded, and now grasped, It becomes, in turn, stone in you, and star.4 Imagery from these nightly promenades would find its way into the artist’s work, and this particular painting was a harbinger of things to come as the artist stands as mediator between the viewer and the land.

As the 1950s progressed, Kipniss captured the landscape with greater frequency and with an inclination toward exploring the subtleties of form and formal composition through an increasingly localized and specific palette of narrow colors. As he himself

14

Self-Portrait: Petersburg, Virginia, 1957. Oil on canvas, 24 × 24 in. (61 × 61 cm).

Courtesy of the National Academy Museum, NY.

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Paintings & Drawings

Village with Steeple, 1955. Oil on panel, 30 × 40 in. (76.2 × 101.6 cm). Collection of Ruby Krajick.

34

Five Trees, 1955. Oil on panel, 10 × 9½ in. (25.4 × 24.1 cm). Collection of Ruby Krajick.

35

Red Shadows, 1957. Oil on panel, 7¾ × 10 in. (19.7 × 25.4 cm). Collection of Ruby Krajick.

36

Still Life with Apples and Green Glass, 1957. Oil on panel, 39¾ x 29¾ in. (101 × 75.6 cm).

Collection of Max and Ivan Kipniss.

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Memories of Iowa, 1959. Oil on panel, 10 × 8 in. (25.4 × 20.3 cm). Collection of Ruby Krajick.

50

Memories of Iowa #2, 1959. Oil on panel, 10 × 8 in. (25.4 × 20.3 cm). Collection of Ruby Krajick.

51

West Side Coffee Shop, 1962. Oil on canvas, 24 × 24 in. (61 × 61 cm). Private collection.

62

Before the Mountain, 1962. Oil on canvas, 39½ × 48 in. (100.3 × 121.9 cm). Collection Elleke, Germany.

63

Twins Approaching, 1963. Oil on canvas, 40½ × 48 in. (102.9 × 121.9 cm). Collection of Peter and Trish Jones.

74

House and Trees, 1964. Oil on canvas, 30 × 36 in. (76.2 × 91.4 cm). Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA.

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Drawings: 1959–1963

Backyards, Columbus, Ohio, 1959. Pencil on paper, sheet size: 5 × 8 in. (12.7 × 20.3 cm). Collection of the artist.

Breezes, 1959. Pencil on paper, sheet size: 5 × 8 in. (12.7 × 20.3 cm). Collection of the artist.

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Central Park at 5th Avenue, 1959. Pencil on paper, sheet size: 5 × 8 in. (12.7 × 20.3 cm). Collection of the artist.

Memories of Virginia, 1959. Pencil on paper, sheet size: 5 × 8 in. (12.7 × 20.3 cm). Collection of the artist.

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22nd Street, 1959. Pencil on paper, sheet size: 8 × 5 in.

(20.3 × 12.7 cm). ­Collection of the artist.

Study for Landscape near Ossining #2, 1960. Pencil on paper, sheet size: 8 × 5 in. (20.3 × 12.7 cm). Collection of the artist. (see p. 54)

Rocks in Central Park, 1960. Pencil on paper, sheet size: 8 × 5 in.

(20.3 × 12.7 cm). ­Collection of the artist.

Trees and Clearing, 1961. Pencil on paper, sheet size: 8 × 5 in. (20.3 × 12.7 cm). ­ Collection of the artist.

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REMEMBRANCE AND PROPHECY The Journey of a Poet-Painter ROBIN MAGOWAN

A

lthough painting and poetry can seem to some as wildly dissimilar arts, the boundaries between them are quite porous. That said, relatively few painters have produced memorable poetry and vice versa: Michelangelo, Edward Lear, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Donald Justice — the list is not long. In this collection of early poems and paintings, Robert Kipniss shows how a young journeyman artist chose different “voices” — different media — to chart something hidden in him.

Kipniss drew a parallel between the two arts in the lithographs he made to accompany the early C.F. MacIntyre translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry (The Limited Editions Club, New York, 1981), and the similarities in tone are indeed striking. Both Kipniss and Rilke are exponents of inwardness, creating meditative enigmas to which we can keep returning without quite piercing their mysteries. The works share a silence that carries something of the ascetic, a purging of excess and an attendant appreciation of a restraint that goes far beyond mere poetic concision. Giving in to the spell cast by this highly wrought silence, we find ourselves waking to realities normally hidden­ — even to what might be called the unknown, the abiding mystery of existence.

At first glance, Kipniss’s poems and paintings from his first decade of serious work would seem to have nothing to do with one another — right hand and left hand — each the product of a different part of the same psyche. Kipniss’s artistic work is joyful; his poetry, fraught, troubled, and vexed.

In retrospect, it may seem that Kipniss’s decade-long immersion in the creation of poetry allowed him to give his art the darkness it had previously lacked. We can even see a poem like “First Mornings at College” (p. 91) as a milestone on that route. In that poem, as in so many of his paintings, he is looking out of a window at the trees of a wooded cemetery:

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A Forest Delirium Out on the unvaried ground of tree Where there are how many trees With the ground underneath Sucked and pulling, The weather a minor pathology Dependent upon the wind’s decisions, Spring to spring, summer to summer.

The positions of a day, The time of tides and a spell In every moment For the cramped roots of trunks Tremendous in collapsed spaces; The positions of a day Make a crumbled environment, A roof letting in, keeping in.

I remember too much.

Brown and ruddy gray, the forest Says, “It is my right to push out of the earth.”

Old leaves quiver and swirl on the ground, Hiding the earth As livelier leaves on the overhead limbs Circulate in the breeze, more or less.

Apart from leaves on the ground There is in this underneath emptiness A disturbing vacancy forever drawing me Deeper, away from the sun, The empty spaces, compelling leftovers Of the once solid world. · · · · 1954

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The Artist at Twenty-Three Once more obscurity brings relief.

I settle into a contented comfort As if embraced in the sympathy Of long-gone hands Pushing from under the ground.

My small exaggerated audience turns Elsewhere, and in my up and down life, (Such small ups and downs, Variations of almost nothing,) I am left again with only the work.

Attention, ever suspect and disappointing, Stays remote from my words and images, As I struggle to take meaning From the glimpses I can find to my heart.

Rejection reaffirms the confidence I have In bearing the winter cold without a roof, Secure in the warmth of labor, Undistracted, painlessly disciplined.

It might occur to me someday I only fool myself, But now I laugh and breathe; The sky blows leaves along the ground, I pick them up and know mercy. · · · · 1954

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Now I Am Here Never having met you alone, Being sure of disappointment Because of your unique beauty, I’ve avoided you.

Now I am here.

You turn your back to me To bring me close, And as I approach I see both our faces Over your shoulder In a slyly placed mirror, Your soft tears of encouragement Glisten gently on your eyelids.

I pray you do not underestimate The feelings of a fool. · · · · 1960

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In Our Love-Filled Youth In our love-filled youth Our lives needed no order.

Working odd hours In restaurants and libraries We walked, spoke, slept and loved Whenever we could.

Our first home was a room With windows near the ceiling Too high to look out on the small town; There was a door with a broken transom Which never closed; coats and caps Hung on the walls from nails And hooks; and on the floor Our mattress lay amid clusters of wrappers From loaves of bread and cookies, And small plates with crushed cigarettes. · · · · 1960

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At Dusk, 1963. Oil on canvas, 25 × 30 in. (63.5 × 76.2 cm). Collection of the artist.

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fir st ed it ion © 2013 Robert Kipniss All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Convention.

Except for legitimate excerpts customary in review or scholarly publications, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by The Artist Book Foundation 115 East 57th Street, 11th floor, New York, New York 10022 Distributed in the United States, its territories and possessions, and Canada by ARTBOOK LLC D.A.P. | Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. www.artbook.com Distributed outside North America by ACC Distribution www.accdistribution.com/uk Publisher and Executive Director: Leslie Pell van Breen Production Manager: David Skolkin Design: Christopher Kuntze Editor: Amanda Sparrow Proofreader: Deborah Thompson Printed and bound by Asia Pacific Offset Manufactured in China Library of Congress Control Number: 2013939219 Cover: Robert Kipniss, Landscape, 1951 (detail, p. 22).

Title page: Still Life with Knife, 1951 (detail, p. 23).

Page 6: Central Park Path, 1961 (detail, p. 59).

Pages 18–19: Fields near Blackstone, 1958 (detail, p. 41).