Artist/Designer: Robert Kipniss

Title: Vase and Landscape 1991

Medium: Mezzotint

Dimensions: Image: 7.75"h x 7" Paper: 12.25" x 10.65" Offered unframed. (Please contact us for framing options.)

Details: Hand-signed Trial Proof on left under image and Kipniss on right under image. Printed on cream rag paper. Generally up to five trial proofs are pulled often using different papers for comparison. Final edition of 75 numbered prints and 10 artist proofs.

Notes from the Archive: Robert Kipniss has his own approach to creating a mezzotint print. As described in the book, Robert Kipniss Intaglios 1982-2004, a copper plate is prepared usually by a mechanical rocker creating hundreds of evenly placed rough points in the surface of the metal. Next different kinds of steel burnishers are used to polish the rough copper surface. Polishing lessens the amount of ink the plate will retain and allows the artist to achieve a wide and subtle range of tonal effects, hence the name mezzotint, meaning middle tones. To get pure white in an area, the surface must be polished mirror smooth so that no ink will be held on the plate. As he produces light areas, the artist's forms emerge from the darkness. Untouched areas will print a velvety black that is a special characteristic of the mezzotint. 

Kipniss’s images are of imagined landscapes and interiors with a universal quality: at once subtle and intense, stark yet moody, dreamlike and realistic. His prints evoke half conscious feelings of having personally experienced this exact moment in time.
Vase and Landscape is both a landscape and an interior, with the vase of flowers layered over the view through the window. The rectilinear edge of the wall acts as an anchor at the edge of the window, while the hillside beyond and the multiple rooftops add diagonal elements to the modern composition. The composition evokes a quiet comtemplative mood, indicative of Kipniss' mastery of the medium.

Shipping Notes: Free shipping included in the continental US. Please contact us for international shipping arrangements.

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