Edward J. Kerns Jr.

Edward J. Kerns Jr.

Abstract artist and educator Ed Kerns, age 80, died October 20, 2025. A noted and celebrated inheritor of the New York School, Ed’s artistic career began a meteoric trajectory in 1972 when his first exhibition at Sachs Gallery on 57th Street in Manhattan garnered praise from The New York Times, The Village Voice, and Artforum, among others. In a career spanning 45 years, Ed enjoyed long associations with noted New York galleries including A.M. Sachs, Rosa Esman, Florence Lynch, and Howard Scott, with 38 solo exhibitions and 130 group shows around the world, including Paris, San Francisco, Chicago, Rome, Madrid, and Osaka. Ed was also a longtime faculty member of Lafayette College, which he joined in 1980 to chair and build their modern-era art department. In 1987, he was awarded the Eugene and Mildred Clapp Professorship of Art, becoming the youngest person to hold an endowed chair in the College’s history. Lafayette’s Williams Visual Arts Building was built under Ed’s leadership and to his exacting specifications, right down to the style and placement of the bricks.

Born in Richmond, Virginia in 1945, Ed began painting at a very young age, and went on to earn his BFA from the Richmond Professional Institute and his MFA from the Maryland Institute, where he studied with famed abstract impressionist Grace Hartigan. Hartigan became a mentor and a friend, bringing Kerns into a circle that included Willem de Kooning, James Brooks, Philip Guston, Clyfford Still, and Sam Francis. Although largely known as a solo artist, Kerns participated in several significant collaborations throughout his career, including with poet Lee Upton; artist Elizabeth Chapman; and the Reverend Ted Loder, for whom Ed illustrated four books. Possessing a wild and restless imagination and drive⎯and a legendarily wicked sense of humor⎯Kerns’ art was never confined to just canvass, and poured out of him in evolving ways through his life: in pen-and-ink cartoons and illustrations in the 1970s (including for National Lampoon); in ever-larger wood sculptures and absurdities in the 1980s (“Dracula’s Beach House” and “Pope Jim-Bob’s Estate” stand as examples); and more recently in colorful multimedia Big Foot and Godzilla diorama.

Beyond the profound marks Ed Kerns left on the American abstract art scene and Lafayette’s art department, Ed’s legacy lives in the artists, writers, and musicians whose lives and careers he championed and supported over the years. All visitors to his studio or home were treated to his generosity in spirit and hospitality, as well as his rapid-fire bursts of entwined wit and erudition (one contemporary said the only comparison to Ed’s conversational style was the zooming boomerang delivery of the late Robin Williams). Ed identified and nurtured talent beyond his sophisticated circles in New York and among his fellow professors, giving freely of his time and considerable knowledge to push young minds toward their own art forms, whatever they may be. Many relationships that began with an informal invitation to hang out in Ed’s studio grew into lifelong friendships and artistic partnerships.

Everyone who knew Ed knew that his greatest love was his daughter, Whitney. In one of many letters Ed wrote Whitney during her college years, was a two-page list of things he’d learned in life, including “Never miss a chance to love” and “Trying to look good limits me.” The very first item on the list reflects the man that so many of his family and friends knew over the years: “Helping other people helps me.”

Ed Kerns is survived by daughter Whitney Kerns, granddaughters Peyton Éibhleann and Callie Joy, brother John William (Bill) Kerns, sister-in-law Christine Kerns, and nieces Meghan and Katherine Kerns.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Karl Stirner Arts Trail in Ed’s name (https://www.karlstirnerartstrail.org/make-a-donation/).

Services will be held separately by Lafayette College and the family. Announcements of these details will be posted in the coming days.

Thank you to Chris Bauman, for your extraordinary way with words, in honoring Ed by writing this memorial. With love, W & Family