By Brian P. Kelly

A monumental sculpture on view for only the second time ever, a painter heading in new directions, and captivating landscapes worth decoding.

Without knowing the artist, it would be hard to place the paintings of Wolf Kahn. Many of his landscapes seem particularly American, though the influence of French Impressionism peeks through the flora; his palette feels indebted to figures like Alexei Jawlensky and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner; and one detects a camaraderie with the Color Field painters. This melting pot of influences makes sense considering Kahn (1927-2020) was a German-born immigrant who spent time in England, studied with Hans Hofmann, lived for a stint in Italy, resided in New York and summered in Vermont.

On William Barents, paintings by Wolf Kahn & Emily Mason, Franz Schubert & more from the world of culture.

by Kevin O'Connor

BRATTLEBORO — Artist Wolf Kahn recalls picking up this town’s newspaper 40 years ago to see himself introduced to Vermonters through a particularly top-dollar interview.

The first question was, ‘How many paintings do you do a year?’ I said maybe 100. The second was, ‘How much do you charge?’ I said a couple of hundred bucks. The next time I had to have my barn reshingled, all of a sudden the price went up.”

Kahn nevertheless thinks highly of his neighbors, be they the farmers who live next door or their cattle that graze his land.

I’ve gotten to feel like I’m no longer just a flatlander — I belong here.”

by Grace-Yvette Gemmel

At first glance, German-American artist Wolf Kahn’s iridescent, ethereal pastel and oil landscapes present themselves as painterly abstractions of familiar New England scenery. Given a second, sustained encounter, Kahn’s canvases come off as abstract, only in the sense that they are not purely landscapes, so much as concentrated studies in color and its capacity to illuminate and conceal. 

Since the advent of Abstract Expressionism followed by Post-painterly Abstraction in the mid-twentieth century, painters and other artists have been liberated to explore large-scale abstraction through expressive gestures, geometric forms, biomorphic shapes, minimal palettes, or new materials. Composed exclusively of works from the holdings of the El Paso Museum of Art, Amplified Abstraction presents all these approaches and more—revealing the variety to be discovered in monumental abstraction, and highlighting its singular power to arrest us aesthetically, engage us viscerally, or tease us perceptually.

By John Seed

The earliest painting on view in Wolf Kahn: Six Decades is a large landscape-derived abstraction from 1960 titled “Into a Clearing.” It features a loose, pulsing welter of brushstrokes that coalesce into lush zones of breathing, blooming color. “Weaving Gray and Yellow,” another oil on canvas completed fifty-four years later, and also on display in “Six Decades” shows a similar gestural approach but with added notes of linearity and a little less painterly vapor.  Consistently in love with landscape — and the idea of landscape as an abstraction — Wolf Kahn has lovingly built a very vivid and beautiful oeuvre since first exhibiting his paintings at the Hansa Gallery, one of New York’s first co-op galleries, nearly sixty years ago.

Review by Stephen May

Addison/Ripley Fine Art, Washington, D.C. 

Still going strong at 86, Wolf Kahn continues to work from nature, intent on representing its universal elements while imbuing his canvases with a specific sense of place. While repeatedly depicting familiar New England landscapes—verdant fields and forests, serene horizons, and sturdy houses and barns nestled among rolling hills—Kahn handles each subject with an appealing spontaneity that keeps every composition fresh. This show brought together 30 oil paintings and pastels, most of them created during the last few years, all of which proved that the German-born American painter has lost none of his flair for intuitive, sensual color.

Brattleboro, VT -- Wolf Kahn views himself as a liberator. The contemporary American artist said he aims to bring "landscape painting up to date" by liberating color, being free in his application and just generally trying to be "more modern than most landscape painters are."

Planning and Spontaneity in Art A Lecture by Wolf Kahn at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center 7 October 2012 Wolf Kahn is a leading figure in American art. His rich, expressive body of work represents a synthesis of his modern abstract training with Hans Hofmann, the palette of Matisse, Rothko’s sweeping bands of color, and the atmospheric qualities of American Impressionism. Kahn has received many honors and awards, and his work is held in the collections of major museums worldwide.

By: Lucio Pozzi

Color & Consequence, Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, 2 June - 16 July, 2011

Several years ago, the late art historian Robert Rosenblum paid a visit to Wolf Kahn’s studio and, after a lengthy and attentive stay, turned to him and said: “There is nothing here that Monet hasn’t done already.”

by Elisa Decker

“Wolf Kahn: Sizing Up,” a two-part exhibition of the artist’s recent work (accompanied by a two-volume publication with an essay by critic Karen Wilkin), featured 15 large-scale oil paintings followed by a second show of 21 smaller related pastels. This arrangement evidenced the interconnectedness of drawing and painting in the artist’s practice while providing an opportunity to observe each medium on its own terms. 

By Robert Berlind

Lyrical scenes of woods, pastures, lakes, streams, coastal sites and, perhaps most famously, barns, whose looming geometry figures in so many compositions: these are the basis of Wolf Kahn’s popularity among the broad public. Kahn’s landscapes range from deftly rendered observations to frankly decorative, nature-based concoctions with freely invented, autonomous color harmonies. Although his strongest affinity may be with Rothko, his work also evokes, by turns, 19th-century traditions of landscape, both French and American, and the less angst-ridden side of German Expressionism. 

By: Lucinda Franks

In a studio at the National Academy of Design’s School of Fine Arts in New York, 30 men and women huddle around Wolf Kahn, craning their necks to discover how he completes one of his country-barn pastels in less than 20 minutes. During this annual two-day workshop, Kahn has religiously refused to talk technique, insisting that if his students let the unconscious take over, their imaginations will flow. Many of them flourish, somehow inspired by osmosis to create glorious color combinations. However, some find his exercises, so simple on the surface, unforgiving in their ability to expose an absence of talent.