The haunting, elegiac prints and paintings of Robert Kipniss have captivated art lovers for more than sixty years, making him one of the most successful and collected artists of our time. In this candid memoir, Kipniss recounts the ups and downs of his early career, the failures and successes of gallery exhibitions and gaining recognition, and the joys and struggles of trying to support a family as an artist, all while tenaciously developing his unique style of landscape painting. Presenting an intimate look into the life of a much-admired working artist, this book will be a welcome addition to the libraries of Kipniss’s collectors, artists trying to establish careers of their own, and all those who have an urgency to do what they love.
This is a beautifully produced book with 32 full-color illustrations that show the artist’s work from early full-color abstracts and portraiture to the later, carefully controlled pictures and prints with their ghostly, haunting, tense qualities. Kipniss’s discovery of the power of middle tones in his work is wonderfully described in words and fully illustrated.
Robert Kipniss’s A Working Artist’s Life is the rarest of literary achievements: a personal memoir, cultural history, and textbook of craft and market. I was enlightened, entertained, and frequently moved by this portrait of the artist composed with a touch of the poet.
Like his paintings, Kipniss’s prose is clear and evocative, and readers will enjoy following his adventures as he fences against the follies and venality of the art world.
Few great painters are great writers, but Kipniss is an exception. In his sensitive and personal memoir we discover his passionate struggle to achieve his artistic goals, balancing the obligations of his personal life with the greater demands of his art.
This is a rare treat. A working artist reviews his life with the same skill with words that he has with brush and stylus.
ROBERT KIPNISS, painter and printmaker, has had over 200 one-man shows since his first one in New York in 1951. He is represented in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New Orleans Museum of Art; British Museum; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; and Pinakothek Moderne, Munich, among others. He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1980, and to the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, London, in 1998. He lives in New York and Connecticut.
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