Clown with Folded Arms

After traveling in the American West and working as an illustrator for a San Francisco newspaper, the Brooklyn-born Kuhn made his way to Europe to further his art education by studying at the Royal Academy in Munich and the Académie Colarossi in Paris. Returning to America, Kuhn settled in New York to work as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines, including "Puck" and "Life." With Arthur B. Davies, he helped form the American Association of painters and Sculptors, serving as executive secretary and visiting Europe to select many of the works for the benchmark 1913 Armory Show. Kuhn's dissatisfaction with the American art establishment may have led him to select works that would upset traditional sensibilities. In the 1920s Kuhn, who possessed a love for popular theater all his life, designed and directed touring vaudeville stage shows. This element of popular entertainment became the subject matter for his mature art. Like European artists such as Daumier, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Cézanne, Kuhn rendered his subjects with a psychological insight that transforms them into sympathetic figures suggestive of the struggles of modern life. "Clown with Folded Arms" represents an acrobat who worked in the Ringling Circus and on the vaudeville circuit. Set against a stark background, the contrast between his makeup and his serious facial expression elevates him above the transient world of entertainment and into the timelessness of artistic tradition.