Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale
Ripley on Frenchman Flat, Nevada, 1941
Chronology
1908 Born Harry Dwight Dillon Ripley in London.
1913 Father dies. Inherits country estate, The Spinney.
1916 Begins at early age to cultivate plants and make botanical drawings.
1925 At Harrow meets fellow student Rupert Barneby, likewise devoted to botany.
1931 In final year at Oxford publishes Poems, written in six languages.
1932 Begins expeditions with Barneby to Spain and Mediterranean in search of plants.
1939 Arrives with Barneby in Los Angeles and begins botanical exploration of Southwest.
1941 In Nevada discovers desert parsley Cymopterus ripleyi, first of six species named for him.
1942 Meets Clement Greenberg on visit to New York.
1943 Moves with Barneby to farmhouse near Wappingers Falls, NY.
1946 Included in group exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim's gallery Art of This Century.
1950 Persuades Greenberg to advise gallerist John Bernard Myers and pledges support to new Tibor de Nagy Gallery.
1951 First atomic test in Nevada is detonated above namesake Cymopterus ripleyi. Never returns to Nevada but exhibits first solo show at Tibor de Nagy Gallery instead.
1957 Marie Menken films Glimpse of the Garden in Ripley-Barneby gardens at Wappingers Falls.
1959 Menken makes film portrait Dwightiana in tribute to Ripley's art. Moves with Barneby to Greenport, NY.
1962 Revisits Spain and Portugal. Begins series of botanical "Travel Posters."
1964 Makes first expedition with Barneby to search for plants in Mexico.
1973 Dies in Greenport. Barneby stores drawings in a trunk.
1998 Trunk is removed from storage and opened for first time in twenty-five years.
2000 Barneby dies.
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale
Ripley at Greenport, New York, 1965
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2021 "Dwight Ripley: A Surrealist in Greenport," Fiedler Gallery, Greenport, New York.
2012 "Travel Posters and Language Panels," Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.
2009 "Travel Posters," Esopus Space, New York.
1962 "Dwight Ripley: Marines," Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.
1956 "Hats," Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.
"Recent Drawings," The Three Arts, Poughkeepsie, New York.
1955 "The Bomb," Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.
"Recent Drawings," The Three Arts, Poughkeepsie, New York.
1954 "Pictures in Crayon and Ink," Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.
1953 "Drawings," The Three Arts, Poughkeepsie, New York.
1951 "Birds, Fish and Cages," Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.
1947 "Recent Paintings [sic]," The Three Arts, Poughkeepsie, New York.
Group Exhibitions
2015 "Pretty Raw: After and Around Helen Frankenthaler," Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.
2012 "Fabulists: John Zinsser, Dwight Ripley, Donald Evans, Florent Morellet," Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.
2011 "Tibor de Nagy Gallery Painters & Poets," Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.
2006 "Unlikely Angel: Dwight Ripley and the New York School," Poets House, New York.
1981 "Tracking the Marvelous," Grey Art Gallery, New York.
1953 "Season in Review," Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.
1951 "Surréalisme + abstraction: choix de la collection Peggy Guggenheim," Palais des beaux arts, Brussels.
"Surrealisme + abstractie: keuze uit de verzameling Peggy Guggenheim," Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
1946 "John Goodwin, David Hill, Dwight Ripley, Kenneth Scott, Charles Seliger," Art of This Century, New York.