Figurative painter Jonah Kinigstein was shut out of the art world when abstract expressionism came to prominence. Now he's finally getting some recognition.
A few times, Kinigstein took these cartoons to New York's gallery district, SoHo, and pasted them onto building walls and lamp posts. Some passersby would get into arguments with him, while others would take them down and ask him to sign them.
"That would be the grist for Jonah's mill: his ability to go out there and protest through his art," his second wife, Eileen Muken Kinigstein, said.To Kinigstein, abstract painting took no talent, no skill, no ability to observe the world. There was also a moral component — he refused to change the way he painted simply because it wasn't popular.
"I saw a guy right in my front of my eyes going from real, real painting to, you know, he laid the painting down on the floor and he started to splash around," he said."I couldn't talk to that guy. I really couldn't talk to him." In 1961, Kinigstein designed this shopping bag based on an old French tarot card for Bloomingdale's department store, which was promoting a"L'Esprit de France" import fair. Stores ran out of them within a week.In 1961, Kinigstein designed this shopping bag based on an old French tarot card for Bloomingdale's department store, which was promoting a"L'Esprit de France" import fair. Stores ran out of them within a week.