FREDERICK KANN Creative Spirit, Visionary Mind
FREDERICK KANN Creative Spirit, Visionary Mind Essay by Susan C. Larsen, Ph.D. – ,
Meredith Ward Fine Art 60 east 66 th street suite 2b new york ny 10065 tel 212 744 7306 fax 212 744 7308
Untitled, Oil on canvas, 28⅞ x 36¼ inches 4
Preface The roster of exhibitors in the “Abstraction-Création” show in Paris reads like a list of modern masters—Albers, Brancusi, Calder, Delaunay, Gorky, Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy, Mondrian, Schwitters—and among them is Frederick Kann. Signatures on the “Dimensionist Manifesto” include those of such revolutionary figures as Arp, Duchamp, Mirò, and Picabia—and there, again, is Frederick Kann. Among the founding members of the Abstract American Artists group are familiar names like Bolotowsky, Diller, Morris—and also Frederick Kann. For more than four decades, the work of this important yet littleknown American artist was thought to have been lost. Now, with this exhibition, Kann’s true contribution to the development of modernism on both sides of the Atlantic can be understood. This is the first one-man exhibition of Kann’s early paintings since their rediscovery by Pamela Esther Nask some twenty-five years ago. It is thanks to Ms. Nask’s diligent efforts, meticulous custodianship, and painstaking research that we are able to appreciate Kann’s extraordinary body of work today. Nask’s holdings were unknown to Susan C. Larsen when, with John R. Lane, she published the ground-breaking work, Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America, 1927-1944 in . So it is with enormous gratitude that we publish here her long-overdue essay on the life and work of Frederick Kann.
Meredith E. Ward
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Cubist Still Life, - Oil on canvas, ⅝ x inches 6
Frederick Kann by Susan C. Larsen, Ph.D. The art and the ideas of Frederick Kann ( -) had widespread appeal and influence in the United States from 1920 to 1960 until he quite suddenly disappeared from view. He left a substantial body of work, published essays, a long career of institution-building, and an international exhibition record. Anyone familiar with American modernism from 1930 to 1960 would certainly know his name and be able to recall a few typical works of art by Frederick Kann. He spent decades in three American cities, Kansas City, Los Angeles and New York, leaving his mark on the artistic spirit and institutional history of each one. He was a creative spirit who lived in the present, looking toward the future. An idealist and progressive visionary, he was a restless, serious man who traveled widely in search of experience and opportunity. Perhaps this is why his art was lost to us for more than twenty-five years as we wondered where his work could be and what happened to it upon his death. Fortunately, it did reappear in all its wonderful originality and vibrancy out of a storage locker one day and into the hands of people who knew of Frederick Kann and cared about his artistic legacy. Frederick Kann was born in Gablonz, Czechoslovakia in May of 1884. Then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his native town offered little to the ambitious young man and he journeyed to his nation’s capital and enrolled at the Technical College of Prague. He studied architecture and design but harbored thoughts of becoming an artist. Kann traveled widely as a student and spent brief periods studying in Munich and Paris. He became caught up in the spirit of innovation and revolution that was sweeping across western Europe and making the language of abstraction a universal idiom in France, Germany, Russia and virtually every other country in their sphere of influence. In 1910, twenty-six year old Frederick Kann emigrated to Canada and used it as a route to get to the United States. He became a naturalized American citizen, which allowed him to travel freely throughout the world. Thereafter, Frederick Kann pursued painting and sculpture while applying his abilities to a variety of tasks including teaching. Early in his life, Frederick Kann understood that art was a high and spiritual
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calling. It was not just a matter of design or good taste or even a matter of following the latest theoretical concepts. The artist should be a seer and a leader, a person who could make plain those inner truths that nature demonstrated in abundance just beneath the outward face of ordinary sight. The artistic world he found in New York in the early 1920s was a younger, simpler one than the sophisticated milieu he had known in Europe. Kann’s sense of modern art as a spiritual calling heralding a new world of transformed perception, fueled his personal work even as he supported himself doing graphic design for American corporations in the years of World War I. After the war’s end, he decided to return to Paris, which he had only glimpsed in his earlier days traveling through Europe. It proved to be a good decision. By 1928, he was settled in Paris where his sophisticated outlook was welcomed in several quarters. He found teaching positions at the most prestigious schools including the Trois Ateliers and subsequently the Ecole d’Art and the Ateliers d’Art Décoratif. By 1933 his work was included in the exhibition of the Association Artistique les Surindépendants. The next year he joined the historic group “Abstraction-Création” and participated in its frequent exhibitions and journal. Frederick Kann was fluent in several languages and able to deal effectively and sympathetically with international artists and students. He was a mature and sensitive person who was often put into the role of mediator facilitator and negotiator within artists’ groups. His Paris studio was the scene of many meetings and visits by fellow artists. For a time, he played host to the American writer Henry Miller who shared the studio as a guest. Miller admired Frederick Kann and understood his work quite well. Miller wrote of his friend, “There is a great deal of mystification in Kann’s abstract paintings, a curious blending of the mathematical and the introspective. Without transition, he jumps from the most rigid academicism to a strange noman’s land which is not even Surrealism.” This tribute, written in Paris in the early 1930s, reflects the dominant role of Surrealism in French literature and art in the period. Surrealism, a movement celebrating the dreams and private longings of each individual dreamer, did not have the universality sought by Frederick Kann. He was a man from another moment with an idealist’s view of modern art. Kann’s work, based upon geometrical forms and an infinitely shaded spatial plane, speaks of the artist’s desire to penetrate mysteries that we all
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Untitled, Oil on canvas, ⅝ x ⅝ inches 9
can share. These involve space-time concepts of modern science and mathematics seen through the understanding and experience of a visual artist. He charted the ever-changing dynamism of the universe, the action of particles of matter, the infinite complexities of human perception journeying through time and space. In 1936, Frederick Kann collaborated with French and international artists on “The Dimensionist Manifesto,” a spirited affirmation of the potential fusion of modern science and modern art. Describing themselves as part of a “great universal and synoptic artistic movement,” they put forth a “new conception of space and time, the development of which, in geometry and physics from Bolyai through Einstein is ongoing in our days.” Among the signatories of “The Dimensionist Manifesto” were: Hans Arp, Francis Picabia, Wassily Kandinsky, Robert Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Joan Mirò, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy and two Americans, Alexander Calder and Frederick Kann. They concluded by describing theirs as a “Cosmic Art.” Frederick Kann’s paintings and sculpture of the early 1930s certainly embody the spirit of “The Dimensionist Manifesto.” He laid down vast shaded fields of color suggesting an infinite space. Swirling forms both elliptical and circular moved through Kann’s magic space at once opaque and transparent. Floating rectangles provided boundaries for dynamic curvilinear counterparts as though to steady them in their cosmic voyage. These paintings employ geometry but do so for a grand and visionary purpose. They are manifestly different from the kind of visual architecture pursued by most of his American colleagues. Kann painted to describe and explore a transcendental but real space, which could only be accessed by the human mind in tandem with modern science. He also pursued a spiritual route by studying meditation and eastern thought in the 1930s. His goal was to provide the viewer with great pleasure and an abundant sense of joy. In 1936, Frederick Kann returned to America to take a position teaching painting and design at the Kansas City Art Institute. A formal letter of appointment warned Kann that his future students in the American Midwest were in need of a practical education in design essentials not a revolutionary exposure to new ideas coming from Europe. Being a kindly and serious man, Frederick Kann endeavored to offer them both. He simply could not understand how people living in the second quarter of the twentieth-century could fall for the isolationist homilies of Thomas
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Untitled, Oil on canvas, ⅝ x inches 11
Hart Benton and his Regionalist colleagues. Benton was a fellow instructor at the Kansas City Art Institute, a revered native son of the state and its major art celebrity. Kann, quite typically, found his own niche within the institution and became a beloved figure that influenced countless students who decided to pursue their own careers within the modern idiom. In 1936, a group of New York modernists got together to form American Abstract Artists. They immediately invited Frederick Kann to join its ranks as a founding member. Kann understood the value of such alliances and did so gladly. With others such as George L.K. Morris, Albert Gallatin, Burgoyne Diller, Ilya Bolotowsky, Balcomb Greene, Carl Holty, Harry Holtzman, Werner Drewes, George McNeil, Alice T. Mason and many members who joined throughout the 1940s, Frederick Kann enjoyed wide exposure. His essay for the 1938 A.A.A. yearbook set him apart from others in the group. Kann said that the most important task for artists was “to become creators rather than imitators. ‘Trying to let the ocean enter the drop’ (Ouspensky), and to find liberation from old rituals and ceremonies, refusing to submit to traditions and authorities; adhering to nothing of the old except to the mysteries of the eternal laws of rhythm and harmonies …’” Kann’s mystical inclinations were not at all typical of the founding A.A.A. members who emphasized the secular and personal nature of their art. They were mostly content with work that featured handsome design and varieties of abstraction that owed less and less to European precedents. Frederick Kann dealt with his much younger colleagues kindly and with a typical willingness to help the group with its traveling venues in America. Frederick Kann took part in the first American Abstract Artists exhibition of 1937 held at the Squibb Galleries in New York City. He also brought the group’s 1938 exhibition to the Kansas City Art Institute and toured it throughout the western United States. In the early 1940s, Frederick Kann was viewed as an elder statesman of modern art, someone who had been a pioneer in the early twentiethcentury. He exhibited with Mondrian at the Rose Fried Gallery in New York in 1940. He showed at the Pinacotheca Gallery in New York in 1942 and at the Mortimer Brandt Gallery in 1943. He continued to show in New York for several decades. Frederick Kann also lent his considerable experience and force of personality to the burgeoning modern scene in southern California. He moved to Los Angeles in 1944 and opened the Frederick Kann-Frank
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Untitled, c. ‒ Oil on canvas, ¾ ⅝ inches 13
Martin Gallery. As part of the gallery program, they sponsored the “Open Circle Abstract Group” to promote abstraction among artists, critics and collectors in California. Kann’s presence had an encouraging influence upon contemporaries such as Knud Merrild, Lorser Feitelson, Helen Lundeberg and many others. In 1948, Kann joined the Modern Institute of Art created by Walter Arensberg to promote a more progressive climate in California art. He also had an impact upon the program and collection of the new Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Frederick Kann became a fixture in the artistic life of Los Angeles during the 1940s and 1950s. He showed frequently at the prestigious Stendhal Gallery in Los Angeles through the 1950s and later with Esther Robles in Beverly Hills. Robles held a memorial exhibition in 1965 and continued to feature Kann’s work until the mid-1970s. So consistent and continuous was the record of Frederick Kann that those of us researching American art of the 1930s and early 1940s were fully aware of his important role. However, we could not access his records or find a substantial body of work for many years. In 1982, Pamela Esther Nask, an art historian and researcher located his work in storage, and her effort to bring it back into its rightful place within his generation of American modernists is to be applauded. More impressive than any record of exhibitions or the vitality of his written discourse, we now have the paintings of Frederick Kann to speak for his life’s aspirations. They are rich in color, subtle in their modulations of space, full of surprising inventions that speak for his desire to describe the sublime. It is as though Frederick Kann were silent for several decades and can speak openly and clearly once again. His paintings offer us the pleasure and joy he sought to instill in each canvas. They exist independently of the artist, or as Kann wrote, “they breathe and emanate an inexplicable attraction, a fascination undreamed of even by their constructor or designer.”
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Untitled, Oil on canvas, ⅝ x ¾ inches 15
Untitled, c. - Oil on canvas, 24 x inches 16
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Untitled, Oil on canvas board, x inches 18
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Three Nudes, c. 1928 - 30 Gouache on paper board, ½ x inches 20
F R E D E R I C K K A N N (1884 - 1965) 1884 Born May 25 in Jablonec nas Nisou (Gablonz), Czechoslovakia. c. 1902-05 Studies painting, sculpture, architecture and applied arts and receives a Matriculation Degree from the Technical College in Prague. Continues studies at art academies in Prague and Munich. By 1910 Emigrates to United States via Canada. Becomes naturalized U.S. citizen. Works as a graphic artist in New York City. 1916 Begins work in New York as Art Director of the Knit Goods Publishing Corp., where he remains for eleven years. 1927-28 Arrives in Paris and takes up residence at 56 rue de Montparnasse. In order to make ends meet, does commercial and publicity work for Alexey Brodovitch. Teaches art at the Ecole des Trois Ateliers and also privately in his studio. Begins painting in an abstract style. 1930 Moves to 59 rue Froidevaux. Meets and becomes friends with Henry Miller. The two men share an apartment, with Kann covering most of the expenses. Continues to support Miller financially during the next few years and gives him drawing lessons. Develops an interest in Eastern culture, philosophies, and religions, as well as Theosophy, mysticism, and the occult. 1931 Exhibits in the first Salon de at Galerie de la Renaissance, Paris, with other more progressive members of the Salon des Surindépendants, June 11-30. 1932 Begins teaching at the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs, where he remains until his departure for the U.S. in 1936.
FREDERICK KANN,
C
1960
Ecole d’Art and the Ecole and Ateliers d’Art Décoratif, the first American to be given this honor. Exhibits in th Exhibition, Association Artistique Les Surindépendants, Paris, October 27 -November 26. 1934 Exhibits with “Abstraction-Création,” Paris, along with other international abstract artists, including Albers, Arp, Brancusi, Calder, Delaunay, Dreier, Gorky, Hélion, Hepworth, Moholy-Nagy, Mondrian, Van Doesburg, and Vantongerloo. Around this time he publishes “Considérations sur l’art soi-disant ‘abstrait,’” in Paris. Exhibits with “Les Artistes Musicalistes.” Exhibits in XIIème Salon des Tuileries, Paris, May 14 June 17. 1935 Exhibits four paintings with “Les Artistes Musicalistes,” November.
Has one-man exhibition of his work, titled Vers l’abstraction at Galerie Bing, Paris, November 15-29.
Exhibits in Autumn Exhibition, American Artists Professional League, Paris, December.
Exhibits in the first Salon des Musicalistes, Paris.
1936 In January, receives offer from Kansas City Art Institute to teach commercial art. Signs “The Dimensionist Manifesto” along with Arp, Picabia, Kandinsky, Delaunay, Duchamp, Calder, Mirò, Moholy-Nagy, and others. In April, after several months of negotiations, accepts the position in Kansas City. Leaves Paris in early July and arrives in Kansas City, via New York, late September.
Exhibits in Artistes Américains de Paris, Galerie de la Renaissance, Paris; three of his works are published in Chil Aronson’s accompanying book, Artistes Américains Modernes de Paris. 1933 Receives notice by Alice Langelier, Paris Mail (March 8) about his appointment to professorship at
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Untitled, c. Gouache with collage on paper, x inches 22
His biographical entry is published in Edouard Joseph, Dictionnaire Biographique des Artistes Contemporains. 1937 Participates in the first Abstract American Artists exhibition in New York. 1938 Publishes “In Defense of Abstract Art” in the American Abstract Artists yearbook. Exhibits sculpture in that show. 1939 In July, his work is included in Realités Nouvelles, Renaissance Plastique, at Galerie Charpentier, Paris, an organization founded by Sonia Delaunay devoted to pure abstract art. Exhibits in Abstract American Artists exhibition, New York. 1940 Participates in American Abstract Art at Galerie St. Etienne, New York. 1942 In January, has first New York exhibition at Pinacotheca Gallery, which receives positive review from Helen Boswell in Art Digest and elsewhere. 1943 Participates in American Abstract Artists exhibition at Riverside Museum, February 9-23. In June, informs Kansas City Art Institute of his intention to leave and is asked to remain on faculty for one more year.
Untitled (Cello Player), c. 1928- 30 Ink on paper, ¼ x inches
1944 Moves to Los Angeles. Teaches at Chouinard Institute. In April, opens the Frederick Kann-Frank Martin Gallery (later called the Circle Gallery), at 7623 Sunset Blvd., one of the only galleries in the city to exhibit abstract art. First exhibition includes work by Kann, Man Ray, Knud Merrild, Hans Burkhardt, Ray Eames, Harry Bertoia, Gina Knee, Hilaire Hiler, Herbert Matter, and others.
1947 Exhibits in Abstract American Artists Exhibition at Riverside Museum, March 30 –April 20. His Forms in Equilibrium is included in the Abstract American Artists traveling exhibition shown at San Francisco; State College of Washington; University of Michigan; and Racine, Wisconsin.
October: Included in 3rd group show at Los Angeles Museum of Art with Ray Eames, Gina Knee, Helen Lundeberg, and Knud Merrild. Publishes “Abstract Art” in Art and Architecture, 61 (June 1944): 16-17. 1946 Exhibits with Abstract American Artists at American-British Art Center, March 25 –April 13.
1948 Joins the Modern Institute of Art, founded by Walter Arensberg to promote progressive art in Los Angeles. 1953 Establishes the Kann Institute of Art in West Hollywood. By 1955, is forced to close the Institute for financial reasons and returns to doing advertising work and giving private painting lessons to earn a living. 1965 Dies July 6 in Los Angeles.
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published in conjunction with the exhibition
FREDERICK KANN Creative Spirit, Visionary Mind November – December 22,
Meredith Ward Fine Art 60 east 66 th street suite 2b new york new york 10065 tel 212 744 7306 fax 212 744 7308 info @ meredithwardfineart.com
design The Grenfell Press, New York printing Trifolio, Verona, Italy edition of 1800 cover (detail) Untitled, Oil on canvas, 28 ⅞ x 36¼ inches frontispiece Untitled, c. Oil and cork on canvas board, x inches
publication copyright © meredith ward fine art
Meredith Ward Fine Art 60 east 66 th street suite 2b new york ny 10065 tel 212 744 7306 fax 212 744 7308