Miles McEnery Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of works by Wolf Kahn, curated by M. Rachael Arauz, Ph.D., on view 30 October through 20 December 2025 at 520 West 21st Street. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring an essay by Arauz.

Wolf Kahn painted the world around him with a reverent devotion. To Kahn, even the most familiar landscapes were a wellspring of limitless inspiration. By returning again and again to idyllic vistas, densely packed woods, and humble barns, he mined the same scenes for meaning, each canvas reflecting the subtle shifts of season or time of day while also satisfying his drive for material exploration. As a master colorist, his palette was not limited to the naturalistic or muted tones of traditional landscape painting; with vibrant oranges, pensive lilacs, and acidic greens, Kahn moved beyond mere representation and captured the complex interplays of himself within these changing surroundings.

M. Rachael Arauz, Ph.D., notes that Kahn’s paintings were “about chromatic experiments, the physicality of mark-making, and the fusion of plein air immediacy with sensory memory as he painted the rural landscape in his urban studio. They are also beautiful paintings of landscapes he knew intimately and properties he cared for. They are not coded critiques of environmental decay, nor are they celebrations of a conquering eye. Kahn’s constructions of landscape, however, direct the viewer to pay attention to what we think we see and to look again at the hidden spaces where disparate elements meet.”