Kenneth Kilstrom
Harold Kenneth Russel Kilstrom (December 25, 1922 – May 11, 1995) was an American painter and printmaker, associated in the 1940s–1970s, with Abstract Expressionism. He was primarily known as Kenneth Kilstrom. He was an apprentice of Isamu Noguchi and a member of Stanley Hayter's Atelier 17.
Also recorded as Harold Kenneth Russel Kilstrom
Kenneth Kilstrom
- Name
- Kenneth Kilstrom
- Born
- 25 December 1922
- Birthplace
- Chicago, Illinois
- Died
- 11 May 1995
- Place of death
- New York, New York
- Field
- Painting, printmaking
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- painter · printmaker
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Documentary summary
Harold Kenneth Russel Kilstrom (December 25, 1922 – May 11, 1995) was an American painter and printmaker, associated in the 1940s–1970s, with Abstract Expressionism. He was primarily known as Kenneth Kilstrom. He was an apprentice of Isamu Noguchi and a member of Stanley Hayter's Atelier 17.
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Note VALÉORINE
Kenneth Kilstrom (1922–1995) was an American painter and printmaker. Born in Chicago, the painter died in New York City. Works by Kenneth Kilstrom are held at Print Collection.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 01 October 2026
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wikidata · Q16013455 · wikipedia · Kenneth Kilstrom
In this article
Biography
Biography
While working with Hayter in New York in 1948, he became the first artist known to have used the direct transfer of "real world" photographic imagery on to an intaglio printing plate as an element in a composition in his work "Attack on Marshall Gilbert".
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Kenneth Kilstrom • Born — 25 December 1922 • Birthplace — Chicago, Illinois • Died — 11 May 1995 • Place of death — New York, New York • Field — Painting, printmaking
Career
Career
Kilstrom was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 25, 1922. He was an only child, the son of optometrist Harold Robert and Hulda Nelson Kilstrom. Kilstrom attended J. Sterling Morton High School in Cicero, Illinois, where he was a member of the National Honor Society. He attended the University of Illinois (1942–1943) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1943–1944). He was awarded a scholarship for art to the Cooper Union in 1945, where he attended briefly, before accepting an apprenticeship with Isamu Noguchi (1945–1947). Kilstrom worked mainly as a printmaker in the 1940s and early 1950s, exhibiting in Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City. He became a friend of artist Milton Resnick and his partner, artist Pat Passlof, who helped Kilstrom with his career. Kilstrom was committed to a psychiatric institution for much of the 1950s and early 1960s but was released, based on the success of a nearly sold out showing of his work at the Tanager Gallery in New York in 1961, with the assistance of Resnick and Pasloff. Kilstrom focused primarily on painting after that time. His work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.
Personal life
Personal life
Kilstrom was married to Joy Soeda, born on July 2, 1915, in Hawaii and died November 16, 1988, in New York. She was the daughter of Japanese immigrants, and a school teacher. She was confined to the Manzanar relocation camp during World War II. The Kilstroms did not have children. Kenneth Kilstrom's estate was sold at auction in New York City in 1995. Kilstrom died in 1995 in New York City.
Exhibitions
Exhibitions
• Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), "76 Jefferson Streeters Show", 1975 • Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, New Mexico, 1971 • Fishbach Gallery, New York City, 1964–1966 • Zabriske Gallery, New York City, 1963, 1964, 1966 • Tanager Gallery, New York City, 1961 • Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, 1949 • Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1948
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
The following is established of the heading itself.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Chicago.
Birth place
New York City.
Death place
Public collections
Public collections
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. • Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN • Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Ft. Worth, TX • Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO • Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Roswell, NM • Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM • Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA • Museum of Contemporary Art, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil • Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY
Collections and holdings
Where the work is held
Collections and holdings
Institutional holdings are recorded as follows.
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
Institutional database
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q16013455: Kenneth Kilstrom
Scholarly · Wikimedia Foundation
reference work
- “Kenneth Kilstrom”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art edited by Gerald W. R. Ward, 2008, page 208.
- 2.The Attack on Marshall Gilbert (1948) Catalog of Photographs and Prints, Library of Congress. Retrieved on 15 March 2014.
- 3.The Attack on Marshall Gilbert (1948) Harvard Art Museum. Retrieved on 15 March 2014.
- 4.The Mortonian, 1940, J. Sterling Morton High School
- 5.Ann McGarrell (2007)The Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program: An Anecdotal History, University of New Mexico Press, p. 48.
- 6.Geoffrey Dorfman (2005) Out of the Picture: Milton Resnick and the New York School, Second Edition, Midmarch Arts Press. .
- 7.Kenneth Kilstrom. National Gallery of Art.
- 8.Kenneth Kilstrom. The Museum of Modern Art.
- 9.Joy Soeda Japanese Internment Records. Retrieved on 15 March 2014.
- 10.Kenneth Kilstrom. AskArt.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
Institutional database
Wikidata, structured authority record Q16013455: Kenneth KilstromWikimedia Foundation
Institutional witnessreference work
Secondary witness
Further particulars
Held on the record
Further particulars
Open the remaining particulars
The registers consulted are Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia. Every statement above is held against the register that stated it; where the registers are silent, the entry is silent.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
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