Large Head

Walt Kuhn

Early output by Walt Kuhn is emblematic of the transition into Post-Impressionism, with most of his work - classiclaly realist works of people and landscapes - drenched in color and movement. His exposure to European Modernism was a constant source of inspiration, however, and his style changed dramatically as the U.S. began to embrace Cubism, Expressionism, Abstraction, and more.

In the first half of the 1920s Walt Kuhn was just beginning to find his way in figurism, and had not fully delved into the moody, emotive circus performer paintings for which he would become best known. Those works would be complex, richly hued, and verging on surreal; in the early 1920s, however, he took inspiration from Matisse's, Cezanne's, and Picasso's modernism. Working frequently in lithography, and he appears to have desired to strip away color and literal representation in favor of pared-down, sculptural compositions, working almost exclusively in black inks and minimal linework.

Here, he depicts a woman with long hair as seen from the collarbone up. The curtain of hair frames her oval face and her eyes, deep set and cast downward, appear carved from stone. Overall, the image is peaceful, even meditative, and he would create several portraits in the same vein even as his paintings became darker in composition and mood.