Wolf Kahn

Wolf Kahn

The renowned American colorist Wolf Kahn (b. Germany 1927-2020) was at the forefront of a movement that combines the freedom and immediacy of abstract expressionism with the solid ground of realism. After arriving in the United States in 1940, he began studying with Hans Hofmann in New York and Provincetown and eventually became the artist's assistant. His bold, luminous paintings and pastels never trade subtlety for vigor; looking at a Kahn landscape, one can get lost in its blazing colors or in its evocation of the real world. Kahn finds the wonder concealed in the ordinary and brings us deep into a multisensory reverie on the nature of place.

Wolf Kahn was the recipient of Fulbright and Guggenheim Awards, and is a member of the National Academy of Design and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work is in many permanent collections, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Jewish Museum, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.; and the National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.