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Lot Essay
Painted in 1992, On the Patio is a rare and exciting work by Scott Kahn in which he turns to himself as his predominant subject. Dressed in dark clothes—a red and yellow plaid shirt, black turtleneck and black jeans—and backlit by low afternoon sunlight, Kahn’s contrapposto pose cuts a striking silhouette against a gleaming patio wall. The human figure features infrequently within the artist’s work. Taking inspiration from his immediate environment, Kahn believes that his paintings—comprised of mostly landscapes, interiors and still lifes—each function in part as self-portraits. ‘My work is driven and inspired by my life as I live it’, he has said. ‘I paint from life as a way of understanding myself and the world around me’ (S. Kahn quoted in ‘Artist Spotlight: Scott Kahn’, Bridgeman Images, 7 December 2021, online). As is characteristic of the Massachusetts-born painter’s work, the details of his surroundings prickle with life. On the Patio presents a vivid tableau of self-exploration.
Born in Massachusetts in 1947, Kahn studied Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University. As a student he was an abstract painter. He enrolled at the Art Students League in New York in 1968 where he studied under Theodoros Stamos and encountered first-generation Abstract Expressionists such as Mark Rothko. Later moving to Sag Harbor in Long Island, and inspired by the abounding natural beauty, however, Kahn turned to figuration as his principal means of expression. ‘There I began to paint from life’, he recalled. ‘This was my true education’ (S. Kahn quoted in ‘Artist Spotlight: Scott Kahn’, Bridgeman Images, 7 December 2021, online). Kahn’s paintings are testament to his painstaking observation of detail. Here, the infinitesimal leaves and buds of his surrounding potted plants are rendered with exquisite care. To the right of the canvas, a flowering bush cascades down the patio wall in daubs of pink and yellow oil paint that are as jubilant as confetti. His technique owes much to the late nineteenth-century innovations of Impressionism and Pointillism—artists such as Seurat, Degas, Bonnard and van Gogh—as does his aspiration to capture effect, atmosphere, and sensation.
With his signature blend of realism and magical realism, Kahn’s work also carries strong parallels with the Surrealism of artists such as René Magritte. Indeed, the present painting bears strange, uncanny elements. Dramatic grey storm clouds hover and brew over the artist’s figure, contrasting with the sharp, flat sunlight. The artist’s sombre garb and rigid pose seem to displace him from his warm surroundings, fracturing place and time. Kahn enjoys layering imagery and symbolism from memory, dreams and his imagination into his compositions. With a career spanning almost six decades, the artist has recently achieved explosive global recognition and critical success at the age of seventy. Here, with no landmark or feature to ground us in reality besides a glimpse of a faraway sea, On the Patio is cloaked in mystery.
Born in Massachusetts in 1947, Kahn studied Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University. As a student he was an abstract painter. He enrolled at the Art Students League in New York in 1968 where he studied under Theodoros Stamos and encountered first-generation Abstract Expressionists such as Mark Rothko. Later moving to Sag Harbor in Long Island, and inspired by the abounding natural beauty, however, Kahn turned to figuration as his principal means of expression. ‘There I began to paint from life’, he recalled. ‘This was my true education’ (S. Kahn quoted in ‘Artist Spotlight: Scott Kahn’, Bridgeman Images, 7 December 2021, online). Kahn’s paintings are testament to his painstaking observation of detail. Here, the infinitesimal leaves and buds of his surrounding potted plants are rendered with exquisite care. To the right of the canvas, a flowering bush cascades down the patio wall in daubs of pink and yellow oil paint that are as jubilant as confetti. His technique owes much to the late nineteenth-century innovations of Impressionism and Pointillism—artists such as Seurat, Degas, Bonnard and van Gogh—as does his aspiration to capture effect, atmosphere, and sensation.
With his signature blend of realism and magical realism, Kahn’s work also carries strong parallels with the Surrealism of artists such as René Magritte. Indeed, the present painting bears strange, uncanny elements. Dramatic grey storm clouds hover and brew over the artist’s figure, contrasting with the sharp, flat sunlight. The artist’s sombre garb and rigid pose seem to displace him from his warm surroundings, fracturing place and time. Kahn enjoys layering imagery and symbolism from memory, dreams and his imagination into his compositions. With a career spanning almost six decades, the artist has recently achieved explosive global recognition and critical success at the age of seventy. Here, with no landmark or feature to ground us in reality besides a glimpse of a faraway sea, On the Patio is cloaked in mystery.