Of Moods And Seasons

Robert Kipniss, a part-time resident of Sharon, is a painter of trees and leaves and ghostly landscapes. And like the artist himself, the pictures are controlled, masterful, often haunting and even (unlike the artist) a bit menacing. His trees can seem about to deconstruct, his leaves to fly away. Now 11 of the artist’s new works — most are from 2011 — are on exhibit at Franklin Riehlman Fine Art in New York City. The gallery is on the fourth floor of an ornate townhouse on East 73rd Street, and is served by one of the smallest, self-service elevators in the city. Just a single, large room with splendid north light, the gallery is perfect for the Kipniss greens, grays and browns. They are more alive than I have ever seen them. “A Soft Wind in Sharon” is filled with still attached leaves on the left and a flight of loose leaves on the right. Pale yellow grass runs along the bottom on a slightly upward diagonal, a thick, hazy barrier of trees is in the background topped by a very tall, faintly painted tree. The image combines motion and stillness, reality and memory. “Without Time” positions six tall, slender saplings against two large trees in the far background. The saplings, carefully spaced and angled from the vertical, stand like pickets in meticulously painted grass, you can almost see each blade, guarding the gentle, horizontal ridges beyond, all under a pale gray sky. In “Foliage With Six Trees,” we do not see the tops or bottoms of the trees, only the branchless trunks in the midst of hundreds of individually painted leaves in pale and dark greens. “Early Spring” is greener than most of his work: Four slender trees, still barren of leaves, stand on vibrantly green grass, with larger in-leaf trees far in the background. There is all the promise of the new season. The Robert Kipniss show runs at Franklin Riehlman Fine Art, 24 East 73rd St., New York City through March 24. Call 212-879-2545 or go to www.franklinriehlman.com for information.