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Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

German, 1927-2020

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1927, Wolf Kahn fled Nazi Germany to Britain through the Kindertransport in the late 1930s. He eventually settled in the United States, where he completed high school and enrolled in the Navy. Following his service, he studied with the legendary teacher and Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann, eventually becoming his studio assistant.

In 1950, Kahn enrolled at the University of Chicago and completed his bachelor of arts degree within one year. He had his first solo exhibition at Hansa Gallery in New York City in 1953 and went on to be represented by Grace Borgenicht Gallery, where he exhibited regularly until 1995.

Kahn was the recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship, the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Medal of Arts from the State Department. He married the artist Emily Mason in 1957. Their marriage lasted sixty-two years until Emily’s death in December 2019, just a few months before Kahn's passing. The pair lived and worked between New York City and W. Brattleboro, Vermont.

Kahn’s work has been exhibited at galleries and museums throughout North America. His work is held in important museum collections including 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 Sculpture Garden; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Find authentic Wolf Kahn paintings and prints on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by Miles McEnery Gallery)

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Artist: Wolf Kahn
Trees Against Brown Background, Wolf Kahn
By Wolf Kahn
Located in Fairfield, CT
Artist: Wolf Kahn (1927) Title: Trees Against Brown Background Year: 2000 Medium: Pastel on paper Size: 8 x 10 inches (sheet); 16 x 18 inches (frame) Condition: Excellent Inscription...
Category

Early 2000s American Impressionist Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel

Secret Meadow (signed twice with inscription to art critic) letter of provenance
By Wolf Kahn
Located in New York, NY
Wolf Kahn Secret Meadow (signed twice with unique personal inscription to renowned art critic, with letter of provenance), 1974 Pastel on Paper - signed twice and hand inscribed, accompanied by letter of provenance Signed lower left front, titled lower middle, and inscribed, dated and signed again on the lower middle and right front Frame Included: elegantly matted and framed in a blond wood museum quality frame with UV plexiglass This poignant yellow pastel landscape is by the renowned painter Wolf Kahn, whose work is famously characterized by abstraction and figuration, as his gorgeously colored landscapes transform into color fields. This particular work is special because it came from the private collection of distinguished art critic and artist Lawrence (Larry) Campbell, who received it as a gift from Wolf Kahn in 1974. It is accompanied by a hand signed and dated Letter of Provenance from Mr. Campbell's daughter which reads, "This painting has been in my home since 1974 when it was given to my father, the late Lawrence (Larry) Campbell, by the artist, Wolf Kahn. In the lower right hand corner of the painting, Mr. Kahn wrote in pencil, 'To Larry in friendship- Wolf 1974.' My father was also a painter, a Director at the Arts Students League of New York, Professor of Art at Pratt Institute & Brooklyn College and an Art Critic for Art News and Art in America Magazines, for over 50 years." The work is also hand signed by the artist, lower left, so it bears two signatures. (For security purposes, the letter is not reproduced here, but the buyer of this work will receive the original hand signed letter...
Category

1970s Contemporary Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel, Pencil, Graphite

Untitled color field landscape with lake (unique, pencil signed monotype)
By Wolf Kahn
Located in New York, NY
Wolf Kahn Untitled color field landscape, 1990 Monotype on paper (unique) Pencil signed and dated by Wolf Kahn on the front Frame included: held ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Screen, Monoprint, Lithograph, Pencil, Monotype

Ocean Cove unique signed pastel painting by America's foremost landscape painter
By Wolf Kahn
Located in New York, NY
Wolf Kahn Ocean Cove, 1996 Pastel on paper painting Hand signed and dated by Wolf Kahn on the lower right Frame included: matted and framed in a wood frame with UV plexiglass This u...
Category

1990s Contemporary Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Oil Pastel, Pastel

Brattleboro Seen as a Flugstadt (unique work acquired from Brattleboro Museum)
By Wolf Kahn
Located in New York, NY
Wolf Kahn Brattleboro Seen as a "Flugstadt" (European river town), 1980 Pastel on paper painting. Framed with handwritten label by the artist and Grace Borgenicht label Hand-signed by artist, hand signed front; bears the artist's handwritten label as well as label from Grace Borgenicht verso and a sticker from original collector Frame included This work was acquired from the Brattleboro Museum in Vermont, which sold it to raise funds for their ongoing programming. As its title notes, it depicts the "Brattleboro Seen as a Flugstadt (European River Town)" - which has important autobiographical images. Wolf Kahn was born in Germany but he and his wife spent summers in Brattleboro Vermont...
Category

1980s Color-Field Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel

Barn in wooded landscape, unique signed pastel, from the Allan Stone Collection
By Wolf Kahn
Located in New York, NY
WOLF KAHN Untitled barn in wooded landscape ca. 1980 Pastel on Paper painting Hand signed on the front Provenance: from the legendary Allan Stone Collection Frame included: held in t...
Category

1980s Contemporary Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel, Oil Pastel

Roughly Textured Trees (unique signed landscape color field pastel painting)
By Wolf Kahn
Located in New York, NY
Wolf Kahn Roughly Textured Trees, 1995 Oil pastel on paper Hand signed in pastel by Wolf Kahn on the bottom front Frame included: held in the original vintage metal frame Hand signe...
Category

1990s Contemporary Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Oil Pastel, Pastel

Blau-Grün (Blue-Green) unique pastel painting
By Wolf Kahn
Located in New York, NY
Wolf Kahn Blau-Grün (Blue-Green), 2000 Pastel painting on paper Signed on the lower left front Frame included: elegantly framed in a museum quality white wood frame with UV plexiglas...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Oil Pastel, Pastel

The Red Barn (New Hampshire Sugar House) original pastel painting
By Wolf Kahn
Located in New York, NY
Wolf Kahn Red Barn (New Hampshire Sugar House), ca. 1995 Pastel on paper painting Hand signed by the artist lower left in pastel pencil Frame included: elegantly matted and framed in...
Category

1990s Contemporary Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Oil Pastel, Pastel

"Umbria, " Pastel signed by Wolf Kahn
By Wolf Kahn
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Umbria" is a landscape pastel by American artist Wolf Kahn. Green hills and trees dominate the composition as a light blue sky evens it out almost exactly in the middle. Titled and ...
Category

1970s Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel

Machias Seal Island Light
By Wolf Kahn
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Wolf Kahn was commissioned by the Smithsonian to design a postcard for them. He made four designs and they selected a singular one. This drawing here is one of the few rejected desig...
Category

19th Century American Impressionist Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel

At Green Camp
By Wolf Kahn
Located in Greenwich, CT
Signed lower left Born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1927, Wolf Kahn immigrated to the United States by way of England in 1940. In 1945, he graduated from the High School of Music & Art...
Category

1970s Color-Field Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel

"The Winter Valley" Purple and Brown Toned Winter Landscape Townscape
By Wolf Kahn
Located in Houston, TX
Blue, purple, and green toned winter landscape pastel drawing by German-American painter, Wolf Kahn. Signed by the artist in the lower right corner. Framed and matted in a gold frame...
Category

1980s Abstract Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel

'Study for Connecticut at Putney' original pastel drawing signed by Wolf Kahn
By Wolf Kahn
Located in Milwaukee, WI
'Study for Connecticut at Putney' is an original pastel drawing by American artist Wolf Kahn. The landscape is an exploration of color and light: it is rendered in cool blues and purples with fields of subtle yellow, the pastels treated with the same gesture as Kahn's paintbrush on a canvas. Indeed, this pastel was a study executed en plein air for a painting – the painting now sometimes called 'Bend in the River' – that he later created in the studio. This process of creating studies, selecting the best of the studies, and then recreating them as paintings was typical of Kahn's studio process and makes this pastel a significant example of the artist's creative output. 9 x 11 inches, artwork 15.5 x 18.13 inches, frame Signed 'W. Kahn' lower right Framed to conservation standards using archival materials including 100 percent rag matting. Housed in a gold finish wood moulding. Acquired directly from the artist. Wolf Kahn, the youngest of four siblings, was born into a well-to-do artistic family. His father was the conductor of the Stuttgart Philharmonic Symphony, and his mother came from a family of art collectors.(1) During 1938, Kahn took his first art lessons, but most of his initial drawings were of military or historical events. The next year Kahn was sent to England for safety following the ascendancy of Hitler to power, and in 1940, he immigrated to the United States. In 1942, he entered New York's High School of Music and Art, and while there, he was employed by a commercial art firm doing illustrations. After a stint in the Navy, Kahn entered Hans Hofmann's school, and among his fellow students were Neil Blaine, Jane Freilicher, Allan Kaprow and Larry Rivers. His initial results were done with a dark palette and abstracted forms, and although Hofmann's style of teaching was difficult, Kahn has consistently praised him for teaching him the value of control and understanding.(2) Kahn's first exhibition was a 1951 group show in a loft with several other artists in lower Manhattan. From this impromptu show, a group effort evolved called the Hansa Gallery Cooperative.(3) In 1953, Wolf Kahn had a one-man show at this gallery, which was reviewed by Fairfield Porter, and at this same time bolder, more vivid colors began to appear in his work. By the mid-1950's, on a summer trip to Provincetown, Kahn's paintings indicated a new direction of softening warm colors in the manner of Bonnard. He was included in Meyer Shapiro's seminal exhibition, The New York School: The Second Generation at the Jewish Museum, and by the end of the 1950s, he had developed his abstracted landscape style for which he is best known. In 1966, he made his first "barn" painting on Martha's Vineyard that reduced the complexities of detail of the architecture to a more basic shape, a stylistic convention that is evident in the Museum's painting. Kahn has since commented frequently on his use of color as a unique and specific component of each work as the situation demands, where the gradual buildup of the colors resembles the beauty and translucent nature of pastels.(4) Since then Kahn has had one-person exhibitions at the Kansas City Art Institute, Chrysler Museum, San Diego Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art and the Columbus Museum, among others. His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums throughout the United States. Footnotes: 1. Much of the biographical information is drawn from Justin Spring, Wolf Kahn (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996). 2. Spring, 21. Wolf Kahn draws this from a 1973 address to the College Art Association. 3. This group included Jane Wilson...
Category

1970s Contemporary Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel

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"Train Station, " Max Kuehne, Industrial City Scene, American Impressionism
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Having received such a thorough foundation in art, Kuehne spent a year in Europe's major art museums to study techniques of the old masters. His son Richard named Ernest Lawson as one of Max Kuehne's European traveling companions. In 1911 Kuehne moved to New York where he maintained a studio and painted everyday scenes around him, using the rather Manet-like, dark palette of Henri. A trip to Gloucester during the following summer engendered a brighter palette. In the words of Gallatin (1924, p. 60), during that summer Kuehne "executed some of his most successful pictures, paintings full of sunlight . . . revealing the fact that he was becoming a colorist of considerable distinction." Kuehne was away in England the year of the Armory Show (1913), where he worked on powerful, painterly seascapes on the rocky shores of Cornwall. 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Wolf Kahn landscape drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Wolf Kahn landscape drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Wolf Kahn in crayon, pastel, paper and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the contemporary style. Not every interior allows for large Wolf Kahn landscape drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 6 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Ian Hornak, Elaine Holien, and Thomas Broadbent. Wolf Kahn landscape drawings and watercolors prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $9,500 and tops out at $25,000, while the average work can sell for $16,450.
Questions About Wolf Kahn Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
  • 1stDibs ExpertApril 16, 2024
    How Wolf Kahn painted changed over the years. Throughout his career, Kahn achieved depth and texture by thinning his paint and building up his compositions with layers of brushstrokes. Toward the end of his life, he switched to using oil sticks, which allowed for more saturated colors. On 1stDibs, find a collection of Wolf Kahn art.

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