Wolf Kahn: Early Drawings

WOLF KAHN
JILL NEWHOUSE
Wolf K ahn
early drawings
Jill Newhouse Gallery

4 East 81st 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 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 interested 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.
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 de Kooning and I think his work influenced me; I adapted what I learned from him to the landscape. 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. 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: JN:
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. 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 JN:
JN:
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. 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 qualitative 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: 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 1112 inches
2.
Pedestrians
1954 Charcoal, 512 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, 834 x 1114 inches
5.
Racepoint Cabin with a Guest

1954 Pencil, 6 x 9 inches
6.
Inspired by . . . Munch
1954 Brush and ink, 814 x 634 inches
7.
Outdoors, at Ashley Falls, MA

8.
Mary on Blue Paper

9.
From our Giudecca Window

10.
Chieza delle brazie (Milan)

11.
Ciardi (American Poet)

12.
Standing Well
13.
Along the Harlem River

14.
Emily Knitting
15.
Nude on a Chair
16.
From Staten Island

17.
Looking Toward the Ocean

18.
Apple Tree in Summer

19.
Up Toward Pienza
20.
Behind San Eusebio

21.
Garden of the American Academy

22.
In the Jury Room

23.
John Ciardi, Poet, Hampton Institute

24.
Sleeping Lioness
1956 Conte, 1312 x 1914 inches
25.
Pumas
26.
Three Heads of a Young Woman

27.
Turtle Club
28.
Birds
29.
Shore Birds
30.
Rabbits
31.
Emily Gazing Downward

32.
Far West Side, High Line

1949 Sepia wash, 512 x 8 inches
33.
Riverside Drive Park

1950 Pen and ink with ink wash, 514 x 812 inches
34.
Wrigley Building, Chicago

35.
Two Flowers in a Water Glass

36.
Asleep
37.
Carl Sprinchorn, Painter

38.
The Cathedral of Todi

39.
San Giorgio
40.
Guillermo, Mexico
1956 Pen and sepia ink with wash, 13 x 19 inches
41.
Member of the Concord Quartet

42.
In the Distant Bronx

43.
Asleep Sitting Up
44.
Staring (Self-portrait)
45.
Camel
46.
Self Portrait, Mexico

Biography
W O L F K AHN 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. 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 currently 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 completed 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; Back again in New York, Kahn became one of the Minnesota Museum of American Art; the National founding members of the The Hansa Gallery, one of Academy of Design and others.
This catalogue accompanies the exhibition
Wolf Kahn: Early Drawings

from November 12 to December 19, 2009
Jill Newhouse Gallery

4 East 81st 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.
fram ing by raymond ruseckas photography by robert lorenzson des ign by l aw rence s unden copyright 2009 jill newhouse llc

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WOLF KAHN

Jill Newhouse Gallery

Interview with the Artist

First Ever Drawing of our Barn

At the Railing on the East River

Matissean Still life

Racepoint Cabin with a Guest

Outdoors, at Ashley Falls, MA

Mary on Blue Paper

From our Giudecca Window

Chieza delle brazie (Milan)

Ciardi (American Poet)

Along the Harlem River

From Staten Island

Looking Toward the Ocean

Apple Tree in Summer

Behind San Eusebio

Garden of the American Academy

In the Jury Room

John Ciardi, Poet, Hampton Institute

Three Heads of a Young Woman

Emily Gazing Downward

Far West Side, High Line

Riverside Drive Park

Wrigley Building, Chicago

Two Flowers in a Water Glass

Carl Sprinchorn, Painter

The Cathedral of Todi

Member of the Concord Quartet

In the Distant Bronx

Self Portrait, Mexico

This catalogue accompanies the exhibition

Wolf Kahn: Early Drawings

Jill Newhouse Gallery

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