Sea Bird

Max Kahn

This image has a stamp on the verso that states: "This original color lithograph by Max Kahn was printed by the artist in an edition of 131 impressions as the 1958 gift to the members of the Print and Drawing Club of the Art Institute of Chicago."

Max Kahn, painter, printmaker, sculptor, and educator, was born on March 15, 1902 in Slonim, Belarus and he immigrated with his family to the United States in 1907. After studying art at Bradley University in Peoria, Kahn moved to Paris for two years where he studied sculpture with Charles Despiau, Antonie Bourdelle, and drawing with Othon Friesz. When he returned to the U.S., he studied at the school of the Art Institute of Chicago and in 1935 he met Eleanor Coen, fellow painter and printmaker, whom he eventually married.

Kahn was a registered artist with the WPA and was head of Chicago's WPA Graphic Art Department. He taught printmaking at the school of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1944 to 1959 and then at the University of Chicago between 1959 and 1969. He also taught printmaking at Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes in Mexico.

With the encouragement of Carl Zigrosser, Kahn joined the cadre of artists represented by the Weyhe Gallery in New York City and, in 1946, the gallery mounted an exhibition of his color lithography which has been referred to as the largest solo exhibition of color lithographs in this country. He also had solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1943, the Princeton Print Club in 1947, the Smithsonian Institution in 1952, and the Art Institute of Chicago in 1954. Kahn's work was included in the 1939 New York World's Fair exhibition, American Art Today, and the annual exhibitions at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1947-51, 1958, and 1960.

Max Kahn died on 29 May 2005, at the age of 103, in Chicago, Illinois.