Jacob Kainen
Encyclopedia
Jacob Kainen was an American painter and printmaker. He is also known as an art historian, writing
books on John Baptist Jackson (US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1962) and the etchings of Canaletto
(Smithsonian Press, Washington, DC, 1967). In addition, Kainen was a collector of German Expressionist art
, and he and his second wife, Ruth, donated a collection of this work to the National Gallery of Art
in 1985.
in 1909. As the second of three sons born to Russian immigrants, Kainen grew up in a family that appreciated culture and talent. His father’s artistry as an inventor and his mother’s love for music and literature undoubtedly fostered in Kainen an insatiable interest in art. Even at age ten, Kainen was eager to study master works, including clippings of art reproductions from the Jewish Daily Forward in his scrapbooks.
In 1918 the family moved to New York City, where Kainen’s budding passion would further advance with trips to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library
. Poetry and literature became major components of his artistic study during high school. When Kainen graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School
at sixteen, he was too young to be admitted to the Pratt Institute
. In the meantime he took drawing classes at the Art Students League, where Kimon Nicolaides
taught him to “trust in the freedom and sureness of his hand.” It was during this period that Kainen made his first prints, drypoint
etchings. Kainen used this time to further exercise his interests by working in the classics department of Brentano’s bookstore, as well as developing his skills as a boxer. Kainen would go on to become an expert in the classics and quite a skilled amateur prizefighter.
Kainen was finally granted admittance to Pratt in the fall of 1927. Though Kainen had a deep interest and appreciation for the old masters during this period of his life, he quickly found the Pratt curriculum backward, too anti-modernist
, and dogmatic. Upon entering school his portraits and color choices remained warm in tone, but as he progressed they became brighter and more reminiscent of Cézanne’s palette. In Kainen’s final year of school, Pratt instituted a curriculum that focused more on commercial art
and commercialized drawing styles. This catalyzed Kainen into a rebellion that resulted in his expulsion from the institute three weeks before graduation, and subjected him to further scorn from many of those associated with Pratt.
This event proved monumental in Kainen’s conceptual and artistic development. After his expulsion, Kainen sought out other avant-garde
artists in the city, especially those who shared his institutional disdain. It led him to begin to engage with the emotive palette and gestures of German Expressionism
and the social awareness and ferocity of social realism
during the 1930s. He became a part of the New York Group, “interested in those aspects of contemporary life which reflect the deepest feelings of the people; their poverty, their surroundings, their desire for peace, their fight for life." His expressionist and social leanings began to definitively merge in the mid 1930s in works such as Tenement Fire (1934) and The Flood (1936).
became acquainted during a particular exchange in which they both defended the importance of copying master works and admitted to lurking in museums. The friendship with Gorky and his influence that resulted from their meeting would prove to be a lifelong one. Kainen was an active participant in the WPA
’s graphic arts program during the second half of the decade, but he eventually parted with the aesthetics of social realism
in favor of abstraction
. Yet his work would never lose its humanism or its concern for history: "However abstract the forms and colors seem, they should somehow give off an aura of human experience." When opportunities in New York for work with the WPA ran low, Kainen moved to Washington DC.
. Though jarred by the elementary state of Washington’s then slow paced art scene, Kainen found inspiration in the Victorian skyline and architecture that defined the buildings surrounding his studio in Dupont Circle
. In the 1940s he was one of the first abstract artists working in the city, and produced abstract compositions of symbols and forms that resounded with both his physical surroundings and personal experiences.
In 1949 Kainen’s national loyalty was questioned and he was placed under investigation by the Civil Services loyalty board. During the 1930s, and the time spent in New York after his expulsion from Pratt, Kainen had written art reviews for the Daily Worker
and signed legal petitions that attempted to institute social change. Such activities later put his job in jeopardy when he was being considered an “enemy of the state.” Kainen was not cleared of formal charges until 1954. The psychological strain and anxiety of this period became evident in his vivid abstractions with titles like Exorcist (1952), Unmoored #2 (1952) and The Listener (1952). Kainen later remembered this time as a period when: “I begin with the aesthetic balancing of forms but these psychological ghosts take over.”
Soon after his clearance by the Civil Services board, Kainen shifted from abstraction to elegant figurative work. As evidence of fervent independence, Kainen rejected the popularity of Abstract Expressionism
for a return to the figure. Kainen began to participate in substantially more exhibitions in Washington after he met his wife, Ruth Cole, in 1968. Prior to their marriage Kainen painted nightly after his workday, at his unheated studio, until ten or eleven o'clock at night, then returned home to do writing or museum research until 2 a.m. because he was not allowed to do scholarly writing on government time. Kainen retired from the Smithsonian in 1970 in order to paint full-time.
Kainen taught evening classes in painting and printmaking at the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts, and was instrumental in introducing Morris Louis to Kenneth Noland
and hiring Louis to teach painting at the Workshop. Shortly thereafter, Louis and Noland began collaborating on "staining," the fundamental notion of Washington Color Field Painting
, and a groundbreaking technique with many influential practitioners.
After his departure from the Smithsonian Institution
in 1970, his work dramatically shifted back to pure abstraction. Yet this body of work contrasted dramatically with his abstraction from the early 1950s. The paintings are no longer imbued with the stress of persecution, rather pieces such as Sweep (1978) and those from the series The Way convey the calm resolution Kainen found later in his life.
These abstract forms float among each other, interacting with a grace and harmony that could only have been reached after years of study and devotion to the arts. In Kainen’s later work the influence of poetry and literature, and the intellectual passion established during his youth combine with his enduring humanism and poignant perception to further explore the true beauty available in art.
books on John Baptist Jackson (US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1962) and the etchings of Canaletto
Canaletto
Giovanni Antonio Canal better known as Canaletto , was a Venetian painter famous for his landscapes, or vedute, of Venice. He was also an important printmaker in etching.- Early career :...
(Smithsonian Press, Washington, DC, 1967). In addition, Kainen was a collector of German Expressionist art
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
, and he and his second wife, Ruth, donated a collection of this work to the National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
in 1985.
Biography
Jacob Kainen was born in Waterbury, ConnecticutWaterbury, Connecticut
Waterbury is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, on the Naugatuck River, 33 miles southwest of Hartford and 77 miles northeast of New York City...
in 1909. As the second of three sons born to Russian immigrants, Kainen grew up in a family that appreciated culture and talent. His father’s artistry as an inventor and his mother’s love for music and literature undoubtedly fostered in Kainen an insatiable interest in art. Even at age ten, Kainen was eager to study master works, including clippings of art reproductions from the Jewish Daily Forward in his scrapbooks.
In 1918 the family moved to New York City, where Kainen’s budding passion would further advance with trips to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
. Poetry and literature became major components of his artistic study during high school. When Kainen graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School
DeWitt Clinton High School
DeWitt Clinton High School is an American high school located in the Bronx, New York City, New York.-History:Clinton opened in 1897 at 60 West 13th Street at the northern end of Greenwich Village under the name of Boys High School, although this Boys High School was not related to the one in Brooklyn...
at sixteen, he was too young to be admitted to the Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
. In the meantime he took drawing classes at the Art Students League, where Kimon Nicolaides
Kimon Nicolaides
Kimon Nicolaїdes was an American art teacher, author and artist. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army in France as a camouflage artist.-Early life:...
taught him to “trust in the freedom and sureness of his hand.” It was during this period that Kainen made his first prints, drypoint
Drypoint
Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. Traditionally the plate was copper, but now acetate, zinc, or plexiglas are also commonly used...
etchings. Kainen used this time to further exercise his interests by working in the classics department of Brentano’s bookstore, as well as developing his skills as a boxer. Kainen would go on to become an expert in the classics and quite a skilled amateur prizefighter.
Kainen was finally granted admittance to Pratt in the fall of 1927. Though Kainen had a deep interest and appreciation for the old masters during this period of his life, he quickly found the Pratt curriculum backward, too anti-modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
, and dogmatic. Upon entering school his portraits and color choices remained warm in tone, but as he progressed they became brighter and more reminiscent of Cézanne’s palette. In Kainen’s final year of school, Pratt instituted a curriculum that focused more on commercial art
Commercial art
Commercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...
and commercialized drawing styles. This catalyzed Kainen into a rebellion that resulted in his expulsion from the institute three weeks before graduation, and subjected him to further scorn from many of those associated with Pratt.
This event proved monumental in Kainen’s conceptual and artistic development. After his expulsion, Kainen sought out other avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
artists in the city, especially those who shared his institutional disdain. It led him to begin to engage with the emotive palette and gestures of German Expressionism
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
and the social awareness and ferocity of social realism
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
during the 1930s. He became a part of the New York Group, “interested in those aspects of contemporary life which reflect the deepest feelings of the people; their poverty, their surroundings, their desire for peace, their fight for life." His expressionist and social leanings began to definitively merge in the mid 1930s in works such as Tenement Fire (1934) and The Flood (1936).
Career
Kainen also frequented cafeterias that had become the places where urban artists met to debate and develop ideas, both social and aesthetic. Kainen and Arshile GorkyArshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...
became acquainted during a particular exchange in which they both defended the importance of copying master works and admitted to lurking in museums. The friendship with Gorky and his influence that resulted from their meeting would prove to be a lifelong one. Kainen was an active participant in the WPA
Federal Art Project
The Federal Art Project was the visual arts arm of the Great Depression-era New Deal Works Progress Administration Federal One program in the United States. It operated from August 29, 1935, until June 30, 1943. Reputed to have created more than 200,000 separate works, FAP artists created...
’s graphic arts program during the second half of the decade, but he eventually parted with the aesthetics of social realism
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
in favor of abstraction
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
. Yet his work would never lose its humanism or its concern for history: "However abstract the forms and colors seem, they should somehow give off an aura of human experience." When opportunities in New York for work with the WPA ran low, Kainen moved to Washington DC.
Curator
From 1942-1970 Kainen was curator of the Division of Graphic Arts at the Smithsonian's U. S. National MuseumSmithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
. Though jarred by the elementary state of Washington’s then slow paced art scene, Kainen found inspiration in the Victorian skyline and architecture that defined the buildings surrounding his studio in Dupont Circle
Dupont Circle
Dupont Circle is a traffic circle, park, neighborhood, and historic district in Northwest Washington, D.C. The traffic circle is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue NW, Connecticut Avenue NW, New Hampshire Avenue NW, P Street NW, and 19th Street NW...
. In the 1940s he was one of the first abstract artists working in the city, and produced abstract compositions of symbols and forms that resounded with both his physical surroundings and personal experiences.
In 1949 Kainen’s national loyalty was questioned and he was placed under investigation by the Civil Services loyalty board. During the 1930s, and the time spent in New York after his expulsion from Pratt, Kainen had written art reviews for the Daily Worker
Daily Worker
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...
and signed legal petitions that attempted to institute social change. Such activities later put his job in jeopardy when he was being considered an “enemy of the state.” Kainen was not cleared of formal charges until 1954. The psychological strain and anxiety of this period became evident in his vivid abstractions with titles like Exorcist (1952), Unmoored #2 (1952) and The Listener (1952). Kainen later remembered this time as a period when: “I begin with the aesthetic balancing of forms but these psychological ghosts take over.”
Soon after his clearance by the Civil Services board, Kainen shifted from abstraction to elegant figurative work. As evidence of fervent independence, Kainen rejected the popularity of Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
for a return to the figure. Kainen began to participate in substantially more exhibitions in Washington after he met his wife, Ruth Cole, in 1968. Prior to their marriage Kainen painted nightly after his workday, at his unheated studio, until ten or eleven o'clock at night, then returned home to do writing or museum research until 2 a.m. because he was not allowed to do scholarly writing on government time. Kainen retired from the Smithsonian in 1970 in order to paint full-time.
Kainen taught evening classes in painting and printmaking at the Washington Workshop Center for the Arts, and was instrumental in introducing Morris Louis to Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
and hiring Louis to teach painting at the Workshop. Shortly thereafter, Louis and Noland began collaborating on "staining," the fundamental notion of Washington Color Field Painting
Washington Color School
A visual-art movement of the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, the Washington Color School was originally a group of painters who showed works in the "Washington Color Painters" exhibit at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art in Washington, DC from June 25-September 5, 1965. The exhibition...
, and a groundbreaking technique with many influential practitioners.
After his departure from the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
in 1970, his work dramatically shifted back to pure abstraction. Yet this body of work contrasted dramatically with his abstraction from the early 1950s. The paintings are no longer imbued with the stress of persecution, rather pieces such as Sweep (1978) and those from the series The Way convey the calm resolution Kainen found later in his life.
These abstract forms float among each other, interacting with a grace and harmony that could only have been reached after years of study and devotion to the arts. In Kainen’s later work the influence of poetry and literature, and the intellectual passion established during his youth combine with his enduring humanism and poignant perception to further explore the true beauty available in art.
Selected collections
Works in the Collection of the Smithsonian American Art MuseumExternal links
- Smith, RobertaRoberta SmithRoberta Smith is an art critic for the New York Times and a lecturer on contemporary art.Born in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, Smith studied at Grinnell College in Iowa. Her career in the arts started in 1968 while an undergraduate summer intern at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in...
, "Jacob Kainen, 91, Painter and Print Curator," The New York Times, March 23, 2001