Wolf Kahn Foundation Opens New Space in NYC
A permanent home for the artist’s archives, MoMA PS1 is getting a new café, which museum scored a sweet early Rothko, and more in Art Movements.
Art Movements, published every Thursday afternoon, is a roundup of must-know news, appointments, awards, and other art-world happenings.
Wolf Kahn Foundation Opens Permanent Space in NYC
The legacy of Wolf Kahn, the German-born American artist whose lush, hue-drenched landscapes bridged Realism and Color Field painting, is entering a new era with a permanent space for his foundation in New York City. The Wolf Kahn Foundation and Archives at 134 West 26th Street will be open by appointment starting Monday, August 24, one year ahead of the late artist's centennial in October 2027. It’s the first designated center for scholarship on the painter, housing a trove of research materials including early studies, letters, lectures, publications, and photographs.
Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, president of the Wolf Kahn Foundation and a friend of Kahn until his death in 2020, told Hyperallergic that while he traveled widely and lived half the year on a hill farm in Vermont, the artist “always returned to his studio in NYC.”
“A refugee from Nazi Germany, he rejoined his family in the US, graduated from NY's High School of Music and Art, and after a stint in the Navy, took classes at the New School for Social Research and entered the Hans Hofmann School. He taught at Cooper Union, met many of his artist peers of the day, and helped organize Hansa Gallery,” McCulloch-Lovell said.
“The Foundation's presence in New York reflects his career and identification as a Second Generation, New York School artist,” she added.
MoMA PS1 Gets a New Eatery
In more New York news, MoMA PS1 will open a café led by chef DeVonn Francis in early October. Named Symone and inspired by Francis’s Caribbean and Jamaican roots, its menu will feature French-African cuisine, including curry chicken salad sandwiches and patties. The restaurant will soft launch with select menu items during Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair from September 24–27. Sounds mouthwatering — just hope it’s not a classic $20 art-world sandwich situation.
Acquisitions
- The Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson has added a trove of artworks to its collection, including photographs by Tommy Kha, 33 mid-20th-century Choctaw baskets, a hand-drawn abstract composition by Rob Carpenter, and 18 works from Doy Gorton’s White South series, photographs taken between 1969 and 1970 that document Southern society during legalized white supremacy. Also among the new holdings is heritage quilter Stephany Brown’s “Madea” (2025), a piece inspired by the African-American women “on whose shoulders she stands,” in her words.
- The Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts, scored an exquisite early watercolor and gouache painting by Mark Rothko. “Untitled (wharf, Gloucester, Massachusetts)” (1934), donated to the institution by the artist’s son, Christopher Rothko, depicts the city’s inner harbor as seen from neighboring East Gloucester, where the painter summered with friends Adolph Gottlieb and Milton Avery.
