FOR 10/26

‘FREDERICK KANN: CREATIVE SPIRIT’ AT MEREDITH WARD NOV. 2

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NEW YORK CITY — “Frederick Kann: Creative Spirit, Visionary Mind” will be on view at Meredith Ward Fine Art November 2–December 22. The show will feature ten oils and four works on paper dating from 1930 to 1944 by this little-known yet influential American artist.

For more than four decades, Kann’s works of the 1930s and 1940s were thought to have been lost. This will be the first solo exhibition of Kann’s early paintings since their rediscovery.

“It was incredibly exciting to learn of the existence of these paintings,” says Meredith Ward, president of the gallery. “Kann was involved with many of the major avant-garde art movements in New York and Paris between the wars, but because his early works had been lost, it was impossible to determine exactly what his contribution had been. With this exhibition, we can begin to connect the dots.”

Kann’s association with the Surindependants and Abstraction-Creation in Paris, and the American Abstract Artists group in New York solidified his credentials as a key figure in the development of modernism on both sides of the Atlantic during the 1920s, 30s and 40s. His name appeared alongside some of the most important modern masters of the Twentieth Century, yet the exact character of his work remained unknown until very recently.

Kann’s paintings reflect the international impulse toward abstraction during the 1920s and 1930s. His emphasis was not only on the formal elements of color, form and line, but how they could be used to convey spiritual, mystical, scientific and cosmological ideas. In 1938 Kann wrote, “Nature is not only the sensual perception of distance, but the intelligent penetration of its interior working process.”

Meredith Ward Fine Art is at 60 East 66th Street. For information, 212-744-7306.