Wolf Kahn (1927-2020) painted the American landscape as a brilliant fusion of color, light, and gesture, embodying both realism and his training with the influential Abstract Expressionist artist and teacher Hans Hofmann. Radical in his approach to color, Kahn asserted, “It’s the idea of the iron fist in the velvet glove, I want maximum strength along with maximum delicacy.” Born in Stuttgart, Germany, he fled Nazi Germany to Britain through the Kindertransport in the late 1930s and immigrated to New York City in 1940, where he graduated from the High School of Music and Art. After serving in the Navy, Kahn began his studies with Hofmann, eventually becoming his studio assistant. In 1950, he enrolled at the University of Chicago, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree. His first solo exhibition in 1953 at Hansa Gallery in New York was a critical success. “Kahn is a high-spirited, lyrical artist who paints the way he does because a leonine manner seems to fit exactly his response to what he sees,” wrote The New York Times of the show. Kahn traveled extensively throughout his career, painting landscapes in Egypt, Greece, Mexico, Italy, Kenya, Hawaii, Maine, New Mexico, and Vermont, where he and his wife, painter Emily Mason, spent the summer and fall at their hillside farm.
Kahn’s work has been exhibited at galleries and museums throughout North America. He received a Fulbright Scholarship, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Medal of Arts from the State Department. His work is in many museum collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; and The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.
All Images Courtesy of the Wolf Kahn Foundation and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
