An early Wolf Kahn self portrait on right
Wolf Kahn was one of America’s greatest landscape painters. He also had a reputation for being kind and generous, a loving husband and father. Sadly, Kahn died in March of 2022, at age 92, just sixty-five days after the passing of his wife, artist Emily Mason. Last year, the Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Foundation awarded $800,000 to six institutions, including the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center.
Kahn and Mason spent more than fifty years at their summer home and studio in Brattleboro, Vermont. Kahn said that the Vermont landscape inspired him, but the atmosphere of Manhattan was where he loved to complete his paintings.
Some insight into the life of a young Wolf Kahn came to light when a guest on the PBS Antiques Roadshow showed up with a painting of the artist as a young man and a great story to go along with the artwork.
The owner of the painting said that in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, his father owned a parking garage on 11th Street in Greenwich Village, close to where many young artists hung out. They parked in his father’s garage, but didn’t always have the money to pay for parking. His father would accept artworks for payment. The man had brought two works to the show; a portrait that Elaine de Kooning did of his father and a self-portrait that Kahn did in his Brattleboro studio.
The appraiser, Todd Weyman, said that the painting was a “transitional work”, probably made in the mid-1960s, when Kahn used a “darker, grayer pallet” than he used in his later landscapes. Weyman said that a conservative estimate for Kahn’s painting would be between $40,000 and $60,000.
The painting's owner said, “Well, it's a lot more than six months' worth of, uh, garage rent.”
The sublime watercolors of Scott Kelley are a reminder of how beautiful and serene the word around us can be. Kelley paints in wild places, like the Florida Everglades, the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness of New Mexico and the barren Straits of Antarctica.
His richly illustrated children’s book I Am Birch is a parable about living life without fear. It’s the story of a birch tree that’s been reduced to a stump by a beaver who spreads rumors of cold and darkness overtaking the woods. The animals in the forest become fearful, but birch tree does not give in to fear, grows new branches and helps to restore serenity to the forest.
Kelley uses profits from the book to fund a nonprofit that will make grants to help artists from the Wabanaki tribe buy materials and supplies.
Please contact us if you would like more information about the works of Wolf Kahn and Scott Kelley available at Surovek Gallery.
References:
ArtForum. $800,000 Awarded to Six Institutions by Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Foundations. June 23, 2022.
Melany Kahn. Wolf Kahn’s Provincetown Stories. The Provincetown Independent. April 9, 2020.
Bob Keyes. With first children’s book, Peaks Island artist Scott Kelley creates a world without fear. Portland Press Herald. April 22, 2018.
