Walt Kuhn 1880 - 1949

Estate of the artist
Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York
Private Collection, 1985
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1991
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1991

New York, Marie Harriman Gallery, Paintings by Walt Kuhn, 1932, no. 6, illustrated
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Second Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, December 1934-January 1935, no. 37, p. 8
New York, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, n.d.
Portland, Maine, Barridoff Galleries; Flint, Michigan, Flint Institute of Arts, Walt Kuhn, 1877-1949, 1984, no. 28, illustrated in color on the cover
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Walt Kuhn: The Entertainers, January-April 1987

Index of Twentieth Century Artists, 1933-1937, vol. 4, 1936, p. 348
Philip Rhys Adams, Walt Kuhn, Painter: His Life and Work, Columbus, Ohio, 1978, no. 289, pp. 142, 259, illustrated pl. 73

Very good condition; lined; under UV: fine.
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Walt Kuhn was born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents who ran a hotel in the rough and tumble Red Hook section of Brooklyn.  His father eventually returned to Bavaria, leaving young Walt and his mother, Amalia, to operate the hotel, which attracted an international clientele from all walks of life and became a sort of cultural epicenter.  Amalia had always dreamed of being an actress and she took her young son to all varieties of public entertainment including New York's popular vaudeville reviews. As a teenager, Kuhn took a job at a sporting goods store that also rented out theatrical costumes. While delivering these costumes, Kuhn often lingered backstage to talk with the performers. From the late 1910s through the early 1920s, Kuhn satisfied his theatrical interests by producing costume galas for various social clubs including the annual artist's ball for the Kit Kat Club where he would hire vaudeville performers to entertain the guests. Eventually, he worked with musical revues, theatrical performances and vaudeville shows designing not only their sets and costumes, but also writing and directing the shows. As Frank Getlein noted: "It is hard to say whether he regarded himself primarily as a painter who made a little extra money dabbling in the theater or as an aspiring director-producer who had some talent in painting" (Walt Kuhn, 1877-1949, Kennedy Galleries, 1977, n.p.).

By the mid-1920s Kuhn recognized that his theatrical exploits were not sufficiently lucrative and in 1925, a near fatal stomach ulcer caused Kuhn to reevaluate his career. He ceased his theatrical involvement and decided to focus exclusively on painting and drawing. By the late 1920s, Kuhn began producing some of his most iconic images of circus and vaudeville performers into which he channeled his passion for the spectacle and verve of public entertainment. In addition to his clowns, acrobats, and jugglers, Kuhn painted a number of showgirl portraits. One of the first full-length examples was Trude (1931, Santa Barbara Museum of Art) a painting of a "striking" and "ever victorious" blond chorus girl from the road company of Show Boat. Her disenchanted expression belies the young woman's blatant sexuality, revealing the humanity beneath the showgirl's flashy public image.

Kuhn had several different methods of finding his portrait subjects. His daughter described her father's practices to Bennard Perlman who wrote:

"'Sometimes he would stand on the corner of University Place and Union Square wearing a black fedora, and he'd dump it over his nose and just stand there looking for models ... On other occasions he would stalk them in cafes and dance halls, then ask one of his friends in the theater to approach them, reasoning that a fellow actor might be less likely to be turned down ... At other times, Kuhn might simply inform his male models that he was looking for  particular type of female and they would scour the neighborhood and send several candidates to his studio, at which point he held a 'cattle call' just like actor's tryouts'" (Walt Kuhn, 1877-1949, Midtown Galleries, 1989, p. 13).      

While some of his subjects were pictured in their own outfits, others were dressed by the artist. Kuhn's New York studio on East 18^th street has been compared to a vast dressing room, filled with countless costumes, some of which were rented, while others were designed by Kuhn and made by his wife Vera.

In 1932 Kuhn produced Sibyl, a full-length portrait of an actress whose real name was Margaret Manly but who went by the stage name "Dixon." Kuhn's favorite color combination was the complimentary colors of red and green, and he uses them in Sibyl to great effect. The brash colors of the model's costume contrast starkly with her pale white skin, which appears lit by an unforgiving spotlight. As with Trude, Kuhn positions his model in an open, frontal position before a plain background, at once exposed and vulnerable. However, her confident stance communicates her cool resignation; she appears completely unfazed by our attention. Kuhn reinforces this slippery distinction between accessibility and remoteness, private and public persona, through Sibyl's heavily made up face. Though Sibyl has made herself up for the enjoyment of her audience, her mask still protects her and keeps her distant and psychologically unattainable.