Paintings by Walt Kuhn

Held at the Art Institute of Chicago.

“One Approach to the art of Walt Kuhn” by LaSalle Spier (excerpt):

Whistler’s use of musical terms as applied to his pictures tends to befog, emotionally, the mind of the observer. In reality, his works have practically no relation to music whatsoever. Insofar as the structural basis of his compositions is understood to parallel that of music, his work is elementary as compared to that of Walt Kuhn.

In the later case the application of musical structure to painting is one of real intelligence and solidity and will be easily recognized by any trained musician.

It is almost certain that the most casual layman will immediately take an entirely different point of view and derive instant pleasure from Mr. Kuhn’s pictures if he will apply to them the same analysis which he employs when listening to the rendition of a musical composition.

Music is considered the most perfect form of art; mathematical in its precision, it demands the highest development of intellectual and emotional combinations of tonal lines, contours, shapes, forms, rhythms, colors, and dynamics.

Walt Kuhn puts painting on a similar basis.

It must be understood, however, that while the method of procedure is the same, the final result visible on the canvas is not music but painting in its purest form.