Walt Kuhn

A painter and major organizer of the Armory Show, Walt Kuhn is perhaps best known for his circus figure-clown depictions.  They were unique in that he treated his subjects as human beings conditioned to specialized jobs.  He also painted still lifes and some landscapes.  He was inspired and influenced by many artists, most notably Paul Cezanne, and like Cezanne, he destroyed many of his canvases, saving only about a dozen paintings a year.

He was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1877 (some older sources quote 1880 as his year of birth) with the name William, but in 1900 first used the name “Walt” when illustrating magazines in San Francisco.