Dubbed “America’s greatest satirist” back in the late 60’s, Vonnegut’s best-selling, and most powerful novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, is pretty much considered classic literature at this point. His novels are dark, complex, persuasive, and controversial.

I can’t say that his art strays far from that description, either. There’s no hint of romantic artistic fancy here, but a continuation of the Vonnegut mind, a unifying sense of something off-beat that intimates deeper meanings despite a deceptive simplicity. His art is as unconventional, and almost as successful, as his writing.

Vonnegut stepped into the graphic arts with illustrations for Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions, his favorite tool being a felt-tip pen. Later he developed a greater passion in art for its own sake, creating silk-screen prints, which I find have an intriguing, “Picasso-esque” feel. And a kind of cool tidbit of note is that his 2004 album cover art created for (the band) Phish is included as part of a traveling exhibit for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Vonnegut’s career as novelist and essayist spanned nearly 6 decades. He died in 2007 at the age of 84.

(More art prints and more about Mr. Vonnegut can be found at vonnegut.com. There is also a lengthy, informational page at Wikipedia)

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