This duck couple looks pretty happy over in Spring Valley.
Last week Fed Lipp passed out copies of a Wolf Kahn interview from an Art Institute of Chicago publication. Both Fred and Kahn studied there but at different times. I didn’t know anything about Kahn but this interview was so concise and action packed that that I went to learn more.
His paintings, mostly bold New England landscapes in high-key colors, are painted from memory and they walk a line between abstraction and representational. They fit Horace’s definition of the purpose of art. They “inform and delight”. Kahn was a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, he studied with Hans Hoffmann and he took Charlie Parker home from the Five Spot when he was messed up. He also wrote a book called,” Wolf Kahn’s America” which I plan to look for in the library as soon as Jerome’s Ignition finishes with our car’s oil change. Still no wireless over here but the waiting room couldn’t be more pleasant.
Kahn, in his eighties now, spends ten hours a day, seven days a week in his studio in lower Manhattan. Summers are spent in West Brattleboro, Vermont where he says he has become “the court painter to the to the chamber music establishment” due to the nearby Marlboro Festival. “Up in Vermont, they understand there is such a thing as culture, not just agriculture.” He considers himself “one of the fortunate people of the world” and “a workaholic”. When asked where he spends his vacation, he says, “My whole life’s a vacation”.
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Robert and Phillip used to have the job of getting Delilah inside (Buster wasn’t sporting enough for that game). http://www.dailyhaha.com/_flash/cat_trap.htm.
This is a link to the cat trap game.