Nanette Vonnegut: Kurt Vonnegut Drawings, Gebunden

Short description

Those who know Kurt Vonnegut as one of America's most beloved and influential writers will be surprised and delighted to discover that he was also a gifted graphic artist. This book brings together the finest examples of his funny, strange, and moving drawings in an inexpensive, beautifully produced gift volume for every Vonnegut fan.

Review

"Kurt Vonnegut is known less for his graphic art than for satiric masterpieces like Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions . But as a writer who draws, he's not alone - Victor Hugo, Tom Wolfe, Günter Grass and John Updike have all sketched and doodled. In Kurt Vonnegut Drawings , with an introduction by his daughter Nanette Vonnegut and an essay by the critic Peter Reed, the drawings - witty and Paul Klee-inspired - are referred to as doodles, as if to distinguish them from the art of Saul Steinberg, his neighbor and friend (who Vonnegut admitted made him feel stupid). But Vonnegut liked to play with color and ideas too. 'Had my father been granted two lifetimes,' Nanette writes, 'I have no doubt he would have mastered some aspect of the visual arts. And he would have cursed it and wished he had chosen to be a poet instead.'"
- The New York Times Book Review

"There's a little Cubism, and a Ben Shahn-like linear quality, to novelist Kurt Vonnegut's drawings, but 1960s psychedelics seem to be more essential to understanding these (often colored) drawings. More than doodles, they have a precision that might surprise even his fans, and of course a sense of humor. The introduction by Vonnegut's daughter Nanette and essay by his friend, Peter Reed, reveal just how important visuals were to the visionary writer."
- The Star-Ledger (Newark)

The wildly various works include the caricatures of the 'Self-Portraits,' the bright whimsy of 'Abstraction,' and the playful 'Letters' with their curving, bubbly lines. 'Lines,' 'Things,' and 'Looking at Things' invite yet defy insights into Vonnegut's fiction, and the last 'Words' seem to mock the whole enterprise of creation, the concluding image a canopied staircase inscribed with: 'There is a ceiling on human thoughts.' Perhaps so, but the refreshing images featured here 'illustrate beautifully a creative mind at play,' and will delight Vonnegut fans."
- Publishers Weekly

Blurb

This collectible volume introduces Vonnegut's legion of fans to an entirely new side of his irrepressible creative personality -- his work as a gifted graphic artist.

Readers around the world know Kurt Vonnegut as the iconic author of books such as Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle. Far fewer fans know that Vonnegut was also a talented graphic artist who drew as prodigiously as he wrote.

Kurt Vonnegut Drawings brings together the finest examples of Vonnegut's funny, strange, and moving drawings in one beautifully designed volume. With a hint of cubism, mixed with a Paul Klee gift for caricature, a Calder-like ability to balance color and line, and more than a touch of sixties psychedelic sensibility, Vonnegut's aesthetic is as idiosyncratic and defiant of tradition as his books. For Vonnegut, making art was a joyful activity; his delight is evident in the work featured here.

Featuring 150 illustrations, some never before published, Kurt Vonnegut Drawings also includes an introduction by Vonnegut's daughter, Nanette, who shares an intimate remembrance of her father, and an essay by Peter Reed, a scholar and Vonnegut's longtime friend.