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“A Suite of Ten Lithographs drawn by Robert Kipniss for the Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke”
In 1981, Robert Kipniss was asked to illustrate a bi-lingual publication of the Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke by C.F. MacIntyre. The result was the beautiful suite of ten black and white lithographic prints, bound into the limited edition of 2000 copies, published by The Limited Edition Club. The effect is described by Dr. Karl Lunde in his book, Kipniss: The Graphic Works; i.e. In these lithographs the artist makes tangible the elegiac poetry of the piercing beauty of landscape when experienced alone, and holds it in poignant solitude for our contemplation…Kipniss’s prints represent the emergence of purity and wonder. These poetic landscapes and objects are dreams which lead us to discover the special unity of man and nature.
In the artistry of Robert Kipniss and Rainer Maria Rilke, man’s relation to the universal is a vital concern, though one expresses himself in the written work and the other in a graphic medium that has no language but the universal. The ten lithographs that Kipniss has made for the Selected Poems of Rilke evolve from years of communion by the artist with Rilke’s poetry – specifically with his favorite translations, the MacIntyre versions. [1]
A rarely available, limited publication of boxed sets of A Suite of Ten Lithographs drawn by Robert Kipniss for the Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, printed in colors, published concurrently with the limited edition of the Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke. These colored suites, published in 1981, inscribed and signed by the artist and boxed along with the associated poems by Rilke in an edition of 120 with 15 A.P.’s and 10 H.C.’s.
[1] The Monthly Letter of The Limited Edition Club, January 1981, Number 518.
