Born in Brooklyn, New York, Walter (Walt) Kuhn lived most of his life in Manhattan. He trained briefly at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, but was mainly self-taught. Kuhn began his career as a cartoonist before sailing to Europe, where he studied at the Académie Colarossi in Paris and the Royal Bavarian Academy in Munich. Upon returning to America, he set up a studio in New York City. He became part of a group of artists determined to break away from the constraints of the National Academy of Design, and he helped organize the 1910 Exhibition of Independent Artists. Kuhn was also a founding member of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, who organized the 1913 Armory Show. In the 1920s, Kuhn was involved with show business, writing and directing vaudeville acts. He also designed costumes. The actors, actresses, showgirls, and clowns were the inspiration for the paintings that became the source of Kuhn’s fame as an artist.

Throughout his career, Kuhn retained the essentially realist style he developed as a young newspaper illustrator. Unlike most American realists of his generation, Kuhn did not reject modernism, but tried to reconcile its ideals and his personal style. The young acrobat, with his brash green costume and stylized features, reflects Kuhn’s liberated attitudes toward color and form. The circus provided Kuhn with some of his most profound subjects. Here, he emphasizes the performer’s dignity and serious demeanor by using the rigid frontal pose associated with formal portraiture.

Adams, Philip Rhys. Walt Kuhn, Painter: His Life and Work. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1978.