Walt Kuhn

“There is always someone who knows,” consummate perfectionist Walt Kuhn (1877-1949) said of any artist who dared give less than their greatest effort in their work (evidently he himself destroyed more paintings than he kept). Remembered as one of the key organizers of the 1913 Armory Show, Kuhn was an accomplished modern artist in his own right, though his insistence on never making art his sole source of income may have contributed to the ways he tended to fly under the radar. 

Born to a working-class Brooklyn family, Kuhn’s early experiences were in bicycle repair, with little indication that art would be part of his future. The sale of a few cartoons to magazines in his teens gave him the courage first to go to San Francisco to make a proper go of a career, then to Europe, to study the old masters. He returned stateside, to New York, in 1903, making inroads and connections that would lead to his Armory Show involvement. 

In 1925, a brush with death (duodenal ulcer) shocked him into focusing on the development of his singular artistic voice, worried as he was he might leave nothing of significance behind. From this period was born his theater and circus series, portraits of clowns and other characters from the stage who, removed from their theatrical environs though still bedecked in elaborate costume, take on a captivatingly eerie tone in harsh, expressive light against dark backdrops.