Wolf_Kahn_2009

WO L F K AHN

J I L L NEWHOUS E

W olf K ahn early drawings

Jill Newhouse Gallery 4 East 81 st Street New York, NY 10028 Tel ( 212 ) 249-9216 email: maildrop@jillnewhouse.com

Interview with the Artist Art turns out to be self expression in spite of one’s best intention.

—WK

Jill Newhouse : Can you tell us something about the role of drawing in your work in the 1950 s? 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 1950 s? WK : I looked at Rembrandt, Claude and Corot. Corot’s 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. André 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 Barn 1968 Pastel, 9 x 11 1 ⁄ 2 inches

2. Pedestrians 1954

Charcoal, 5 1 ⁄ 2

x 8 inches

3 . At the Railing on the East River 1949 Ink, 8 x 10 inches

4 . Matissean Still life 1952

Pen and ink, 8 3 ⁄ 4

x 11 1 ⁄ 4

inches

5. Racepoint Cabin with a Guest 1954 Pencil, 6 x 9 inches

6. Inspired by . . . Munch 1954 Brush and ink, 8 1 ⁄ 4 x 6 3 ⁄ 4 inches

7. Outdoors, at Ashley Falls, MA 1970 Pencil, 10 x 13 1 ⁄ 2 inches

8. Mary on Blue Paper 1954 Pencil, 14 x 14 1 ⁄ 2 inches

9. From our Giudecca Window 1958 Pencil, 13 x 19 inches

10. Chieza delle brazie (Milan) 1963 Pencil, 4 1 ⁄ 2 x 6 1 ⁄ 2 inches

11. Ciardi (American Poet) 1952 Pencil, 12 x 9 inches

12. Standing Well 1956 Pencil, 16 x 13 inches

13. Along the Harlem River 1951 Pen and ink, 6 x 9 inches

14. Emily Knitting 1958

Pencil, 10 1 ⁄ 2

x 8 1 ⁄ 4

inches

15. Nude on a Chair 1962 Pen and ink, 7 x 10 inches

16. From Staten Island 1952 Pen and ink, 3 1 ⁄ 2 x 7 inches

17. Looking Toward the Ocean 1954 Pen and ink, 10 1 ⁄ 2 x 13 1 ⁄ 2 inches

18. Apple Tree in Summer 1950 Pen and ink, 8 x 5 inches

19. Up Toward Pienza 1958 Pencil, 4 1 ⁄ 2 x 6 1 ⁄ 2 inches

20. Behind San Eusebio 1963 Pencil, 4 1 ⁄ 2 x 6 1 ⁄ 2 inches

21. Garden of the American Academy 1958 Pencil, 13 x 19 inches

22. In the Jury Room 1967 Pencil, 8 1 ⁄ 2 x 11 inches

23. John Ciardi, Poet, Hampton Institute 1956 Pencil, 12 x 9 inches

24. Sleeping Lioness 1956

Conte, 13 1 ⁄ 2

x 19 1 ⁄ 4

inches

25. Pumas 1948 Pencil, 14 x 17 inches

26. Three Heads of a Young Woman 1958 Pencil, 9 x 6 3 ⁄ 4 inches

27. Turtle Club 1952

Pencil, 5 1 ⁄ 2

x 7 inches

28. Birds 1958 Pencil, 6 x 8 inches

29. Shore Birds 1958 Pencil, 6 x 8 inches

30. Rabbits 1956

Pencil, 4 1 ⁄ 2

x 6 1 ⁄ 2

inches

31. Emily Gazing Downward 1962 Pencil, 7 1 ⁄ 2 x 5 1 ⁄ 2 inches

32. Far West Side, High Line 1949 Sepia wash, 5 1 ⁄ 2 x 8 inches

33. Riverside Drive Park 1950 Pen and ink with ink wash, 5 1 ⁄ 4 x 8 1 ⁄ 2

inches

34. Wrigley Building, Chicago 1950 Pen and ink, 5 x 8 inches

35. Two Flowers in a Water Glass 1959 Pencil, 9 x 10 1 ⁄ 2 inches

36. Asleep 1957 Pencil, 16 x 13 inches

37. Carl Sprinchorn, Painter 1955 Pencil, 19 x 14 inches

38. The Cathedral of Todi 1963 Pencil, 11 x 15 inches

39. San Giorgio 1958

Pencil, 9 x 11 1 ⁄ 2

inches

40. Guillermo, Mexico 1956 Pen and sepia ink with wash, 13 x 19 inches

41. Member of the Concord Quartet 1983 Pencil, 11 3 ⁄ 4 x 9 inches

42. In the Distant Bronx 1952 Pen and ink, 5 1 ⁄ 2 x 8 inches

43. Asleep Sitting Up 1957 Pencil, 13 x 16 1 ⁄ 2 inches

44. Staring (Self-portrait) 1956 Pencil, 11 1 ⁄ 2 x 9 inches

45. Camel 1956 – 57 Pencil, 9 x 11 inches

46. Self Portrait, Mexico 1956 Pencil, 20 x 14 1 ⁄ 2 inches

Biography

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 1947–49 , 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 Hofmann’s 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, Kahn’s 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.

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.

Back again in New York, Kahn became one of the founding members of the The Hansa Gallery, one of

This catalogue accompanies the exhibition Wolf Kahn: Early Drawings from November 12 to December 19, 2009 Jill Newhouse Gallery 4 East 81 st Street New York, NY 10028 Tel ( 212 ) 249-9216 email: maildrop@jillnewhouse.com www.jillnewhouse.com

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.

framing by raymond ruseckas photography by robert lorenzson design by lawrence sunden

copyright 2009 jill newhouse llc