Kurt Vonnegut Drawings

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 talented graphic artist. This book brings together the finest examples of his funny, strange, and moving drawings in a beautifully produced gift volume perfect for every Vonnegut fan. Kurt Vonnegut s daughter Nanette introduces his never before published drawings with an intimate remembrance of her father.

Vonnegut always drew, and many of his novels contain sketches. Breakfast of Champions (1973) included many drawings he had made with felt-tipped pens, and he enjoyed a show of his drawings at New York s Margo Feiden Gallery in 1983, but his work increased in the early 1990s when he became acquainted with the screenprinter Joe Petro III, who became his partner in making his colorful drawings available as silkscreens. With a touch 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. While writing came to be more onerous in his later years, making art became his joyful primary activity, and he made drawings up until his death in 2007.

Author Biography

Nanette Vonnegut, a painter and writer, is the daughter of Kurt Vonnegut. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Peter Reed is an emeritus professor of English at the University of Minnesota. A longtime friend of Vonnegut, he has written extensively on the author s work.