Scott Kahn

Scott Kahn
Born	1946 Springfield, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Known for	Painting

Scott Kahn (born 1946 in Springfield, Massachusetts) is an American painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and sculptor.

Early Life

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts to Bennett Jordan Kahn, and Anne (née Moss) Kahn. Bennett Kahn was the founding publisher of the The Jewish Weekly News which was an English language newspaper for the Jewish community in Western Massachusetts, and Anne Kahn was a homemaker. Bennett Kahn died in 1952 of a heart attack when Scott Kahn was six years old. In 1954 Anne Kahn remarried to Irving Rothchild, the owner of a printing company, Springfield Offset & Printing Co.

Scott Kahn began kindergarten at a public school in West Springfield, Massachusetts then transferred to a Jewish school in Springfield for approximately a year, before transferring to a public school in West Springfield where he remained until the forth grade. During his time in school in West Springfield, Kahn received his initial exposure to fine art in art instruction offered at his school. Kahn later recalled his instructor assigning him to draw an imaginary bird which was featured on the class bulletin board for its mastery. When Kahn’s mother remarried, the family relocated to the affluent community, Long Meadow, Massachusetts where he attended Converse Street School and remained until beginning junior high school. During that time, he took art classes at the basement of the Springfield Museum. Kahn attended Long Meadow Junior High School. While in junior high, Kahn received lessons in clarinet, violin, and piano.

Kahn began at Long Meadow High School in 1959. During high school, the dynamic of his home life changed, primarily with the relationship with his stepfather who was unsympathetic to Kahn’s creative and social development. Kahn found solace in his neighbor, Cherry Fabe Michelman, an heiress and professor at University of Massachusetts, who encouraged his interest in art, language, and music. In his freshman year, Kahn began art classes at his school as well as extracurricular classes in painting at Baypath Junior College. Later in high school, Kahn and a close friend took adult art classes at the Springfield Museum where he was first exposed to painting from the live female nude model. He also played violin in the high school orchestra, took private private piano lessons in downtown Springfield, and attended summer music camp classes at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where he sang in the chorus and played in the orchestra. Additionally, Kahn took private adult painting classes under a local professional artist in rural Enfield, Connecticut. In his senior year, Kahn was tasked with creating the illustrations for his high school yearbook. He graduated in 1963.

Education

Kahn received his BFA from the University of Pennsylvania and his MFA from the Rutgers University. He studied at the Art Students League under Theodoros Stamos and met many of the first generation Abstract Expressionist artists including Mark Rothko.

Career

Scott Kahn was under representation for 25 years by the Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery in New York City where he had numerous solo exhibitions. In 2004, a retrospective exhibition of his work was mounted at the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania. Kahn has been the recipient of awards from significant organizations including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in New York City and the Edward Albee Foundation in Montauk, New York.

Personal Life

Kahn had one sibling, Gary Kahn (1947-1988), a prominent gay pornographic film producer who died of AIDS. In 1975, Edward Albee introduced Scott Kahn to playwright and poet, Frederick Kirwin while Kahn and Kirwin were visiting Albee at the Edward F. Albee Foundation in Montauk, New York. Kahn and Kirwin were married in 2020 in a civil ceremony via Zoom during the COVID-19 Pandemic from Kahn’s cousin’s attic where Kahn and Kirwin then resided in New Rochelle, New York.

Collections

His work is owned by many leading public, corporate and private collections including, the University of Pennsylvania, Dallas Art Museum, Dulles International Airport in Washington D.C., AT&T, Marriott International, J.P. Morgan, MetLife and Philip Morris USA. The Moss-Thorns Gallery of Art at Fort Hays State University owns the largest retrospective collection in the world of limited edition graphic works by Kahn which numbers in excess of sixty objects.

External links

• Official website