Wolf Kahn: Density & Transparency

Exhibition Website

Jun 23 2017 - Oct 8 2017

One of the most highly regarded American artists alive today, Wolf Kahn is known for his signature blend of Realism and the formal discipline of Color Field painting. Born in Germany in 1927, Kahn emigrated to the United States as a boy. He graduated from the High School of Music & Art in New York City and later studied under Hans Hofmann. [....] 

In January 2017 Kahn was awarded the International Medal of Arts by the U.S. State Department. Since 1968 Kahn and his wife, artist Emily Mason, have spent summers living and working in West Brattleboro, Vermont.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

Whether or not you go, Wolf Kahn aims to demonstrate how Kahn's use of colour places him at the forefront of American representational art. In the 1950s and 1960s, a group of young artists forged a fresh, representational art that made use of the Abstract Expressionists' spontaneous brushwork and brilliant colour to document the world. One of the leaders of this group, Wolf Kahn, specialized in landscape painting, which he has developed over the last 40 years. This book presents an overview of Kahn's life and career - his childhood in Germany, his study at the Hans Hofman school, his early success as a latter-day Expressionist, and his ten years as a painter of austere, tonalist canvases, before he turned to the luminous landscapes that established his reputation. There is also an analytical essay by the painter and critic Louis Finkelstein which discusses the origins and value of Kahn's fusion of abstraction and representation.

Wolf Kahn

  • Painting
  • American
  • 20th Century
  • Landscape
  • Wolf Kahn

Exhibition Venues & Dates