Walt Kuhn
1877
–1949
BirthplaceBrooklyn, New York, United States of America
Death placeWhite Plains, New York, United States of America
BiographyAn illustrator, printer, painter, sculptor, and advisor to American art collectors such as John Quinn (1870-1924) and Lillie Bliss (1864-1931), the versatile Walt Kuhn was also an avid supporter and promoter of contemporary art. Born in New York to a working-class family and raised in Brooklyn, Kuhn took art classes at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in 1893. He traveled to California and, in 1901, to Paris and Munich where he studied at different art academies. During his two-year sojourn he saw and appreciated modern European art. Returning to New York in 1903, he worked as an illustrator and continued to paint.
Overseas again in 1912 as executive secretary for the newly established Association of American Painters and Sculptors, Kuhn visited exhibitions in such cities as Cologne, Munich, Berlin, and Paris looking for avant-garde art. The loans of European art he procured on this trip, together with notable examples of American art, formed the renowned International Exhibition of Modern Art—the 1913 Armory Show. Consisting of over 1300 objects, the exhibition brought diverse trends in modernism to the American public and served as a watershed in the history of American art. Kuhn’s early interest in the European avant-garde slowly shifted. By the early 1920s his focus was local and he was creating figurative work depicting the subjects around him in New York. It is this later work for which Kuhn is best known, specifically his renderings of vaudeville actors and circus performers.
Overseas again in 1912 as executive secretary for the newly established Association of American Painters and Sculptors, Kuhn visited exhibitions in such cities as Cologne, Munich, Berlin, and Paris looking for avant-garde art. The loans of European art he procured on this trip, together with notable examples of American art, formed the renowned International Exhibition of Modern Art—the 1913 Armory Show. Consisting of over 1300 objects, the exhibition brought diverse trends in modernism to the American public and served as a watershed in the history of American art. Kuhn’s early interest in the European avant-garde slowly shifted. By the early 1920s his focus was local and he was creating figurative work depicting the subjects around him in New York. It is this later work for which Kuhn is best known, specifically his renderings of vaudeville actors and circus performers.