Wolf Kahn: Early Drawings

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JILL

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Jill Newhouse Gallery4 East 81st Street New York, NY 10028

Tel (212) 249-9216

email: [email protected]

Wolf Kahnearly drawings

Interview with the ArtistArt turns out to be self expression in spite of ones best intention.

WK

Jill Newhouse: Can you tell us something about the role of drawing in your work in

the 1950s?

Wolf Kahn: Wherever I travelled, I took a sketchbook and pen and ink; later I worked

with conte crayon and pencil but in the early works, it was mostly pen. Whatever inter-

ested me, I drew. Starting in high school, I did caricatures and portraits of friends. I also

went every weekend to the Central Park Zoo. I had a real addiction to drawing there.

JN: What artists and what drawings were you looking at or studying in the 1950s?

WK: I looked at Rembrandt, Claude and Corot. Corots work is wonderfully ambiguous

and leaves a lot to the imagination, which I like. Later I looked a great deal at Morandi

and Bonnard. I was also a friend of deKooning and I think his work influenced me; I

adapted what I learned from him to the landscape.

JN: When you studied with Hofmann, did you ever draw abstractly, or were all your

drawings representational?

WK: Even when making non-descriptive moves, I was, and am, a representational

painter. Andr Gide said art is a collaboration between the artist and God and the less

work the artist does, the better.

JN: Do you think of your drawings differently from your paintings and pastels? Did

they develop in a parallel fashion, or independently?

WK: I do not make a distinction between drawing and painting in that way. I never gave

any thought to trying to relate the different facets of my work. I was not interested in

forging a style; I was just doing my work.

JN: How would you have us see these drawings in relationship to your current work?

WK: In these drawings, I was involved in description, in making a record of where I was.

They represent my attempts to connect with my surroundings, which I am still trying

to do, in different ways. They are my earliest efforts at observation, which is the source

of my art today.

JN: How did the landscape without figures become your primary subject?

WK: I reached a point when I no longer knew what the figure in the landscape should

be doing there. Corot put nymphs and such in his landscapes, but if I did that, I would

be dishonest. I use the landscape as a pretext, not a subject.

JN: You have said that you discovered there are no lines in nature. Is this why you have

given up line drawing completely, and draw only in pastel?

WK: It was my growing interest in color that took me away from drawing. I still love

to draw.

JN: Why did you decide to show these drawings now?

WK: I pulled these works out last spring and after not having seen them for many years,

they looked better than I remembered. When I did them, I was not making any quali-

tative judgment at all. I think it is a mistake to try to assess quality that way.

I also decided to show these drawings because your gallery provided the right venue.

JN: How do you see yourself as an artist?

WK: I am not trying to be an artist; I am just trying to do my work. I like to think of my

art as an ant heap. Each time I finish a work, I am bringing a grain of sand up to the top.

1.

First Ever Drawing of our Barn1968

Pastel, 9 x 1112 inches

2.

Pedestrians1954

Charcoal, 512 x 8 inches

3.

At the Railing on the East River1949

Ink, 8 x 10 inches

4.

Matissean Still life1952

Pen and ink, 834 x 1114 inches

5.

Racepoint Cabin with a Guest1954

Pencil, 6 x 9 inches

6.

Inspired by . . . Munch1954

Brush and ink, 814 x 634 inches

7.

Outdoors, at Ashley Falls, MA1970


8.

Mary on Blue Paper1954


9.

From our Giudecca Window1958


10.

Chieza delle brazie (Milan)1963


11.

Ciardi (American Poet)1952


12.

Standing Well1956


13.

Along the Harlem River1951


14.

Emily Knitting1958


15.

Nude on a Chair1962


16.

From Staten Island1952


17.

Looking Toward the Ocean1954


18.

Apple Tree in Summer1950


19.

Up Toward Pienza1958


20.

Behind San Eusebio1963


21.

Garden of the American Academy1958


22.

In the Jury Room1967


23.

John Ciardi, Poet, Hampton Institute1956


24.

Sleeping Lioness1956

Conte, 1312 x 1914 inches

25.

Pumas1948


26.

Three Heads of a Young Woman1958


27.

Turtle Club1952


28.

Birds1958


29.

Shore Birds1958


30.

Rabbits1956


31.

Emily Gazing Downward1962


32.

Far West Side, High Line1949

Sepia wash, 512 x 8 inches

33.

Riverside Drive Park1950

Pen and ink with ink wash, 514 x 812 inches

34.

Wrigley Building, Chicago1950


35.

Two Flowers in a Water Glass1959


36.

Asleep1957


37.

Carl Sprinchorn, Painter1955


38.

The Cathedral of Todi1963


39.

San Giorgio1958


40.

Guillermo, Mexico1956

Pen and sepia ink with wash, 13 x 19 inches

41.

Member of the Concord Quartet1983


42.

In the Distant Bronx1952


43.

Asleep Sitting Up1957


44.

Staring (Self-portrait)1956


45.

Camel195657


46.

Self Portrait, Mexico1956


WOLF KAHN was born in Stuttgart, Germany in

1927. When his family was forced to flee with the rise

of Nazism, Kahn travelled through England to the

US, arriving there in 1940. In 1945, after graduating

from the High School of Music and Art in New York,

and a brief stint in the Navy, Kahn studied for a short

time with Stuart Davis and the printmaker Hans

Jelinek. From 194749, he studied in New York with

Hans Hofmann, and became his studio assistant.

In the summer of 1947, Kahn followed Hofmann to

Provincetown, persuading the older artist to waive his

class tuition in exchange for work. He became the

monitor in Hofmanns classes and made friends with

Jane Freilicher, Larry Rivers, Nell Blaine and Jan

Muller, fellow artists also working in Provincetown

that summer. Back in New York in the fall, Kahns

work was included in a significant exhibition at the

Seligmann Gallery curated by Clement Greenberg.

Titled New Provincetown 47, the show focused on

Hofmann students such as Rivers, Freilicher, Paul

Georges, Kahn and others. In 1950, Kahn enrolled in

the University of Chicago, graduating in 1951 with a

BA. From here he travelled west, working in the

Rockies and Great Plains, Oregon and Wyoming.

Back again in New York, Kahn became one of the

founding members of the The Hansa Gallery, one of

the earliest cooperatives that made up the Tenth

Street Galleries. Here he had his first one man show

in 1953 which was reviewed by the artist/critic

Fairfield Porter who was to become a lifelong friend.

In 1957 he married the painter Emily Mason. Also

that year, he joined the Grace Borgenicht Gallery

where he exhibited regularly until 1995. Kahn cur-

rently shows with Ameringer & Yohe in New York,

and with other galleries throughout the United States.

Kahn is the winner of numerous awards including a

Fulbright Scholarship, a John Simon Guggenheim

Fellowship, and an Award in Art from the American

Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a member of the

National Academy of Design, as well as the American

Academy of Arts and Letters and has recently com-

pleted an appointment to the New York City Art

Commission. He has travelled and painted in such

diverse locations as Maine, New Mexico, Hawaii,

Mexico, Greece, Italy, Kenya, and Egypt.

Works by Wolf Kahn are in many important museum

and private collections including the Metropolitan

Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American

Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Hirshhorn

Museum; the Los Angeles County Museum;

Minnesota Museum of American Art; the National

Academy of Design and others.

Biography

With sincere appreciation for the continuing help and support of those

who made this exhibition and book possible:

Emily Mason and Diana Urbaska; Christa Savino and Amy Kurlander.

And a special thanks to Michael Rubenstein for his inspiration and friendship.

This catalogue accompanies the exhibition

Wolf Kahn: Early Drawingsfrom November 12 to December 19, 2009

Jill Newhouse Gallery4 East 81st Street New York, NY 10028

Tel (212) 249-9216

email: [email protected]

www.jillnewhouse.com

framing by raymond ruseckas

photography by robert lorenzson

design by lawrence sunden

copyright 2009 j ill newhouse llc

Documents

Wolf Kahn: Early Drawings