WOLF KAHN
WOLF KAHN
Six Decades
24 April - 31 May 2014
Selected Works
Press Release
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - AMERINGER | McENERY | YOHE is pleased to announce a survey exhibition of works by Wolf Kahn. The exhibition will open on 24 April and will remain on view through 31 May 2014. A public reception for the artist will be held on 24 April from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.
With paintings dating from 1960 to 2014, this exhibition of works illustrates the complex evolution of Wolf Kahn's prolific career.
Kahn's early works are nearly monochromatic, concentrating on subtle varying tonalities. Though nature was his inspiration, the subject matter remains allusive. However, by the late 1960s, Kahn began his transition to a bolder palette. Amidst this shift, the subject becomes increasingly explicit while abstractly depicted.
The landscape, both real and fantastic, becomes a conduit for imagination and invention and acts as a vehicle for Kahn's painterly gesture and bold exploration of color.
Like the late works of Matisse, Avery, and Hofmann, Kahn's paintings from the last decade are a great flowering that celebrate joy, beauty, color, and life.
WOLF KAHN was born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1927. He immigrated to the United States by way of England in 1940. In 1945, he graduated from the High School of Music & Art in New York, after which, he spent time in the Navy. Under the GI Bill, he studied with renowned teacher and Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann, later becoming Hofmann's studio assistant. In 1950, he enrolled in the University of Chicago. He graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Having completed his degree in only one year, Kahn was determined to become a professional artist. He and other Hofmann students established the Hansa Gallery, a cooperative gallery where Kahn had his first solo exhibition. In 1956, he joined the Grace Borgenicht Gallery, where he exhibited regularly until 1995. Kahn has received a Fulbright Scholarship, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Travelling extensively, he has painted landscapes in Egypt, Greece, Hawaii, Italy, Kenya, Maine, Mexico, and New Mexico. He spends his summers and autumns in Vermont on a hillside farm, which he and his wife, the painter Emily Mason, have owned since 1968.
Wolf Kahn regularly exhibits at galleries and museums across North America. His work may be found in the collections of 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, MA; the Hirshhorn Museum and the National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA.