top of page

gallery neptune & brown

Wolf Kahn: Color Creates Light

Wolf Kahn: Color Creates Light

Wolf Kahn

For Wolf Kahn, the process of making monotypes is a creatively rewarding one. His process involves working in tandem alongside a master printer with zinc plates, large wet sheets of heavy Arches paper, and a massive etching press. A lush array of Caran d’Ache water-based crayon inks await as composition, scale and color are applied and ready for a single run through the etching press.

This exhibition explores Kahn’s printmaking, which is an embodiment of his mentor Hans Hofmann’s statement, “color creates the light.” Through studies of color in what one may regard as a romantic landscape, oak trees and barns are transformed from their everyday presence. “For an artist” he asserts, “it can often be said that when he’s looking, he’s working.” And it is in this process of looking that Kahn begins to abstract the spaces where sky meets barn, barn meets the messy foreground, or the branches of a pecan tree interrupt and melt into the sky. The artist’s passion for monotypes has resulted in the creation of many landscape compositions through which his subjects “transcend the everyday...to represent an overarching insight.”

Image Credit:

Wolf Kahn, Orange Band, 1990

Orange Band

Wolf Kahn

1990

Plate size: 13 1/2 x 22 inches Sheet size: 22 x 30 inches Frame size: 25 1/2 x 33 inches

Monotype with pastel

Wolf Kahn

Barn with Propped Door II

2002

Plate size: 9 x 12 inches Sheet size: 21 x 28 1/2 inches Frame size: 24 x 32 1/2 inches

Monotype and pastel

Wolf Kahn in the studio, 2007

Dense Magenta Forest

Wolf Kahn

2006

Plate size: 9 x 12 inches Sheet size: 15 x 20 3/4 inches Frame size: 18 x 24 inches

Monotype with pastel

Wolf Kahn

In Southbury CT, Dusk

1990

Plate size: 14 1/2 x 19 3/4 inches Sheet size: 20 5/8 x 25 7/8 inches Frame size: 24 x 29 inches

Monotype

Wolf's studio table with boxes of Caran d'Ache water-based crayon inks alongside paint containers, 2007

Long Barn, Pink and Purple

Wolf Kahn

2002

Plate size: 12 x 15 3/4 inches Sheet size: 22 1/2 x 30 inches Frame size: 25 3/4 x 33 inches

Monotype with pastel

Wolf Kahn

Orange Band

1990

Plate size: 13 1/2 x 22 inches
Sheet size: 22 x 30 inches
Frame size: 25 1/2 x 33 inches

Monotype with pastel

Monotype plates in the studio, 2007

Sauna Cabin

Wolf Kahn

1990

Plate size: 14 x 21 1/2 inches Sheet size: 21 1/2 x 28 1/4 inches Frame size: 23 1/2 x 31 inches

Monotype

Wolf Kahn

Wet Feet

2001

Plate size: 14 x 11 inches
Sheet size: 30 x 22 inches
Frame size: 33 x 25 inches

Monotype

Green and Purple

Wolf Kahn

1987

Plate/sheet size: 26 x 38 inches

Monotype

Wolf Kahn

Gray Purple Verticals

2012

Plate size: 16 x 24 inches Sheet size: 21 1/4 x 28 3/4 inches

Monotype

Kahn is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Medal of Arts. His work can be found in the permanent collections of over forty-five institutions including the National Gallery of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Curriculum Vitae

Get in touch with

gallery neptune & brown

1530 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005

Member Logo 2022.png

2029861200

or

bottom of page