Simon
Misch Kohn
American, 1916–2003
1961
A lithograph portrait composed of tangled orange and red lines in which the artist seeks to evoke a sitter’s presence and inner movement through hurried, expressive marks.
You’re struck by a floating bust that at first reads as a whirl of looping, overlapping scribbles which, with closer looking, resolve into the suggestion of eyes, a nose and shoulders, producing a sense of vibration and motion.
Dating from 1961, the work bridges portraiture and abstraction, illustrating how postwar artists pushed printmaking toward gestural line and psychological intensity, expanding what a lithograph could express.
Medium
Lithograph
Dimensions
composition (irreg.): 20 7/8 × 15 11/16" (53.1 × 39.9 cm); sheet: 30 3/16 × 22 1/4" (76.7 × 56.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Kleiner, Bell & Co.
Accession
894.1967
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
