Kiki Smith, born this day in 1954. Evening Star, 2023, aqueous archival inkjet, acrylic archival inkjet, white gold leaf on Hahnemühle rag paper

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“As it fantasizes, poetry comes across nature. The real, living world is the only project of the imagination which has once succeeded and which still goes on being endlessly successful. Look at it continuing, moment after moment a success. It is still real, still deep, utterly absorbing. It is not something you are disappointed in next morning. It serves the poet as example, even more than a sitter or a model.”

Untitled (Book of Hours), Kiki Smith, 1986–2003, MoMA: Drawings and Prints

Gift of the artist in memory of Beatrice Smith Size: page (each, approx.): 8 1/2 x 5 1/2" (21.6 x 14 cm); overall (approx.): 8 11/16 × 5 1/2 × 3 9/16" (22 × 14 × 9 cm) Medium: Artist's book with 365 rubber-stamped pages of handmade Twinrocker paper

Urogenitals, Kiki Smith, 1994, MoMA: Drawings and Prints

Gift of the artist in honor of the Young Print Collectors of the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books Size: composition (irreg.): 26 1/4 x 10 3/4" (66.7 x 27.3 cm); sheet: 31 1/8 x 18 13/16" (79 x 47.8 cm) Medium: Rubber stamp

Happy Birthday to Kiki Smith who was born on this day in 1954!

“I think that lots of times (my work) it’s healing—it’s trying to mend, it’s mending—stitching people up. People are flayed open—laid open. Myself, I’m trying to sew myself up….” - Kiki Smith, 1990

“The basic way of making things is similar to how I made things in all my life. I make changes depending on the changes in my life.” - Kiki Smith, 2014

For more than three decades, Kiki Smith has been producing a varied corpus of work including sculptures, printmaking, photography, and installations, constantly exploring human nature and the body, especially as relates to women. “Her investigations of the body—without shying away from taboos, awkwardness, or the boundaries of shame—are an aesthetic discourse on the human condition: they deal with birth, age, dying, wounding and healing, reanimation, sexuality, gender, identity, memory.” (Petra Giloy-Hirtz, p. 11)

Image 1: Photo of Kiki Smith by Erik Madigan Heck Description: Black and white photo of the artist, showing waist up.

Image 2: “Born”, 2002, Bronze, 99 x 256.5 x 61cm Description: A naked adult size woman lies on the floor as she came out of a deer with her feet still stuck in the deer’s rear.

Image 3: “Noctua, Corvus, Hydra, Filis”, 2013, Ink on Nepalese paper with mica and methylcellulose glue, dimension variable. Description: Image of a large snake forms as if its body is a river. Along the body/river, an owl, a bird and a large cat are seen. Papers are crinkled and glued to make a larger size. Some star shapes are added but sparsely. Almost monochromatic drawing with some blue, red, and yellow.

Image 4: Front cover: “Looking up with vein”, 1995, Pencil, colored pencil, and ink on paper, 52.7 x 64.1cm Description: A man’s head is looking up showing his chin with stubble beard and his blue vein as prominent.

The Leaving, Kiki Smith, 2007-2008, Brooklyn Museum: Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

© Kiki Smith, courtesy of Pace Gallery Size: 72 x 105 in. (182.9 x 266.7 cm) Medium: Ink on paper, glitter, graphite, and lithographic crayon

3 of 7 etchings in Porfolio: White Mammals, Kiki Smith, 1998, Harvard Art Museums: Prints

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Margaret Fisher Fund © Kiki Smith Size: plate: 79.1 x 45.6 cm (31 1/8 x 17 15/16 in.) sheet: 79.1 x 57.2 cm (31 1/8 x 22 1/2 in.) Medium: printed in black on heavy white wove paper

Pee Body, Kiki Smith, 1992, HAM: Sculpture

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Barbara Lee, Gift of Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Purchase in part from the Joseph A. Baird, Jr., Francis H. Burr Memorial and Director's Acquisition Funds © Kiki Smith Size: 68.6 x 71.1 x 71.1 cm (27 x 28 x 28 in.) Medium: Wax and glass beads (23 strands of varying lengths, 1' to over 15' long)