Wolf Kahn

Wolf Kahn – His creative talent was awakened and fostered early on

Wolf Kahn was born Hans Wolfgang Kahn in Stuttgart on 4 October 1927. At the age of three, he was taken into the care of his grandmother Anna Kahn in Frankfurt as his mother had left the family and his father’s second wife, a young singer, did not want to bring up a small child. Although he grew up away from his father, brothers and sister, Kahn had a happy and privileged childhood surrounded by art treasures: His family’s painting collection included works by Carl Spitzweg, Franz Winterhalter, Wilhelm Trübner and Hans Thoma, and there were books and busts of Schiller and Geothe as well as antique furnishings from the period of King Edward VII. At the age of four, Wolf Kahn had already painted his first picture and was greatly encouraged in his creative abilities by his loving grandmother, with his caricatures of sporting and military themes causing much amusement for those around him. In 1932, Kahn’s mother died and in 1933, his father Emil Kahn lost his conducting post with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra - which he had founded - due to his Jewish roots. He emigrated to the USA with his second wife and Wolf Kahn’s siblings whilst his youngest son stayed in Frankfurt, attended the Jewish Gymnasium and received private art lessons. 

Emigration to New York and art studies in Chicago

At the age of eleven, Wolf Kahn was forced to flee to England with a refugee transport, whilst his grandmother was deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Wolf never saw her again. Only Wolf’s drawings he made as a young child survived from her estate, which the family’s maid rescued and sent to Kahn’s father in the USA: The family was finally reunited in 1940 when Wolf travelled to New York following his father’s separation from his wife, and there he was looked after by his eldest sister. He attended the High School of Music & Art in New York and concentrated more on caricatures. Having fulfilled his military service in the US Navy, he studied under the renowned Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann and worked for a time as assistant in his studio. He studied for a Bachelor of Arts from 1950 to 1951 at the University of Chicago, where he also developed an interest in philosophy and in particular the writings of Immanuel Kant.

A much-travelled artist with a predilection for light

Together with other of Hans Hofmann’s students, Wolf Kahn founded the Hansa Gallery, where he held his first solo exhibition. In 1956, he joined the Grace Borgenicht Gallery, to which he remained loyal until 1995. He travelled to Egypt, Italy, Greece, Mexico, Hawaii and Kenya, and painted numerous landscape paintings. The capture and depiction of light was a central theme of Wolf Kahn’s work, who also had a particular sense for the artistic interpretation of fleeting atmospheric effects. In doing so, his pictures always transcended mere descriptions, without abandoning the tangible reference to concrete locations. He had two daughters with his wife, the painter Emily Mason, named Cecily and Melany. Cecily Kahn followed in her parent’s footsteps, and is married to the painter David Kapp.

Wolf Kahn died on 15 March 2020 at the age of 92.