by David Ebony 

Artists, lovers, life-partners, art-world rivals, benefactors, and luminaries, Emily Mason (1932–2019) and Wolf Kahn (1927–2020) were all of these things—and more. Miles McEnery Gallery has devoted each of its two spaces to the first posthumous solo gallery exhibitions for the couple, who died within months of each other after more than sixty years of marriage.

by Miles McEnery

They say, “Never meet your heroes.” I couldn’t disagree more.

The Painting Center presents Cultivate Your Own Garden, an exhibition of twelve contemporary artists: Cecile Chong, Elisabeth Condon, Daniel Dallmann, Carlo D’Anselmi, Lois Dodd, Ashley Garrett, Xico Greenwald, Eric Holzman, Wolf Kahn, Judith Linhares, Carol March and Ruth Miller on view through March 24th.

The title for the show comes from the Voltaire novel Candide (1759) and refers to the idea of taking care of one’s own needs before taking care of others’. The idea of connecting to nature despite the cacophony of the world around us seems apt at this moment in history. Curators Patricia Spergel and Shazzi Thomas selected artists for this exhibition who reference garden and landscape in their work in a variety of ways – traditional observational painting, works with subtle satirical and political commentary and paintings that lean towards abstraction. What all these paintings have in common is a love for nature and paint, and a clear, focused approach to transmitting that passion.

BRATTLEBORO — Vermont artist Wolf Kahn has reaped many awards in a life as colorful as his work, but the 89-year-old just traveled to Washington, D.C., to receive his first medal. “It’s big and heavy, with a blue ribbon you can put around your neck,” he says. “I thought I was getting the Medal of Freedom the president gave to the vice president.”

Although Kahn didn’t win the same accolade President Barack Obama surprised Joe Biden with on Thursday, the master of vibrant oil paint and pastels received a hefty honor the same day: the U.S. State Department’s International Medal of Arts.

Kahn, who divides his time between Brattleboro and New York City, was one of six artists recognized by the Art in Embassies program for loaning work to American diplomatic outposts around the globe.

By Karen Kedmey

Octogenarian painter Wolf Kahn—who was among the second generation of the New York School artists—continues to paint every day. Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe celebrates his recent work with a solo exhibition, featuring the luminous scenes of barns, rivers, meadows, and wooded New England landscapes for which the much-lauded artist is known.

By John Dorfman

Wolf Kahn’s work seems to balance on a fulcrum between representation and abstraction. Officially, his oils and pastels are landscapes – rows of wispy birch trees march across the canvas, masses of color convey the outlines of hills, lakeshores, and barns. But they’re also abstractions in the tradition of Color Field painting.

By Scott Indrisek

At 86, Wolf Kahn is still a firecracker. The painter — who has spent the majority of his life in New York, and who is known for vibrantly colored landscapes and nature scenes — is the subject of a six-decade retrospective on view at Ameringer McEnery Yohe through May 31. “The earlier the painting is, the better it seems to me to be,” Kahn deadpanned, thinking back to some of the canvases he produced in the early ’60s. “I think I’ve gone downhill ever since.” On a more serious note, he’s proud of himself for not resting on his laurels: “Here I am, still trying to do things that I don’t know how to do, strike out in new directions. I think that’s very healthy, and I consider myself fortunate.”

Wolf Kahn's 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. In an essay accompanying a 2011 exhibit of Kahn's work, BMAC chief curator Mara Williams wrote, "His images are palpably about place, and yet they transcend mere description. For more than half a century, this modern master has balanced the sensuous qualities of color and light with a relatively stark geometry of form, giving free reign to complex investigations of perception and of place."

By Franklin Einspruch

One usually associates the name of Wolf Kahn with New England landscapes, but his economically painterly treatment suits the urban fabric as ably. Ameringer McEnery Yohe has put together a show of his New York images to prove it.

Wolf Kahn spends much of his summer sketching in pastel in and around Brattleboro, Vermont, later refining the sketches in his hilltop studio. BMAC is honored to present a portion of his summer 2011 artistic production.

Wolf Kahn’s recent paintings, continuing his long engagement with rural New England as fodder and muse, still manage to startle and delight. With the unveiling of two dozen new oils at Ameringer McEnery Yohe on June 2, some 58 years after his first gallery show, the artist seems to declare all the debates of the intervening decades still vital. In a work such as Complex, 2009, above, we can see the tensions between flatness and depth, expressionism and formalism, abstraction and figuration come to life. – EB

By: Maureen Mullarkey

Sizing Up, Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, 26 April - 27 July 2007

Can art this ingratiating be taken seriously? The question dogs critical appraisal of Wolf Kahn. His popularity with a broad public and the unclouded loveliness of his landscapes give rise to grumblings that he has not earned his keep. His lyrical paintings and pastels, on view in two successive shows at Ameringer & Yohe, are so easy to like that they offend against the inherited mantle of vanguardism that marked his early career.

by Tomassio Longhi

A painter whose name has been for the most part identified with landscapes which combine abstraction, representational motifs, and an unusual repertoire of high-key colors, Wolf Kahn has finally revealed to his critics and audience that his distinguished career has had a long and complicated evolution.