Robert Kipniss

Robert Kipniss began his career writing poetry and fiction, later focusing on oil paintings and monochrome mezzotint prints depicting bare wintertime trees, interiors, still lifes, and countryside scenes with modest, solitary houses. Born to artistic parents, Kipniss first studied at New York’s Art Students League before completing an MFA in painting and art history at the University of Iowa in 1954. He had his first solo exhibition at Joe Gans Gallery in New York in 1951, and his moody scenes capturing atmospheric moments have since been included in international solo and group shows. Though Kipniss began making the mezzotints for which he is best known in the 1960s, it wasn’t until the early 90s that he worked with the medium more exclusively with works such as Hidden trees (2018). He has also painted in oils throughout his career, and worked in stone lithography. His compositions are devoid of people and strive to harmoniously balance vertical and horizontal elements, exploring the effects of light on branches and fields in a palette of grays and earth tones.