Jacob Kainen (1909-2001)

The son of Russian emigrants, Jacob Kainen was born in Waterbury, CT in 1909, the second of three boys. The family relocated to the Bronx in 1918, and it was soon apparent that the young Kainen shared his mother's affinity for the arts. As a teenager, he began to take drawing classes at the Art Students League, while concurrently satiating his love of literature by working in the Classics department at Brentano's. Talented on multiple fronts, Kainen also showed great skill in boxing, and would realize success as an amateur prizefighter.

Kainen enrolled at the Pratt Institute in 1927, where he studied for a number of years before being expelled during his final year. The expulsion was the result of Kainen's defiance in the face of a curriculum shift toward a more commercial focus on the arts. This experience would greatly influence the direction of his practice and career, as Kainen sought refuge in more avant-garde settings and camaraderie among pioneering abstractionists such as John Graham, Stuart Davis, and Arshile Gorky.

Prior to and during World War II, Kainen was employed with the WPA, where he became more acquainted with the various techniques and processes involved in printmaking. But these new interests did not deter him from continuing to develop his painting practice, and toward the end of the 1930s, he became associated with a group known as the "New York Group," which included Alice Neel. Through their work, this group explored the concept of social realism, focusing on common, working-class people. The New York Group exhibited at the famed A.C.A. Gallery, and Kainen enjoyed a solo show there in 1940.

Seeking more reliable work, Kainen accepted a position within the Graphic Arts Division of the Smithsonian National Museum, and moved to Washington in 1942. What was intended to be a temporary move proved otherwise, as Kainen ascended through the curatorial ranks at the Smithsonian, while concurrently helping to establish the post-war art scene that would come to be known as the Washington Color School. Through a teaching position at the newly-formed Washington Workshop Center for the Arts, Kainen played an important role in fostering the talent and careers of artists such as Gene Davis, Alma Thomas, and Morris Louis.

From 1949 to 1954 - the outset of the Cold War - Kainen was placed under various levels of scrutiny by the Civil Service Commission, due largely to prior writings and associations from his years in New York. But with the support of Smithsonian leadership and a commendation from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover himself, Kainen was eventually able to move beyond the the investigation.

This cloud of suspicion manifested in Kainen's work from this period. He painted some of the most emotive and vibrant canvases of his career, and in 1952, Kenneth Noland organized Kainen's first retrospective, which was held at the Catholic University of America. Ever the contrarian, Kainen eschewed association with the concepts of Color Field painting and the Washington Color School, and shifted his painterly practice back to figurative work by the end of the decade. He continued painting and his work at the Smithsonian during the 1960s, while also focusing more on writing and research, which culminated in a number of scholarly publications.

In 1969, he married his second wife - the writer and art collector Ruth Cole - and shortly thereafter, added another title to his resumé: collector. Over the next three decades, the Kainens would assemble one of the preeminent private collections of 20th-century German expressionist prints and drawings, in addition to standout works by 16th-century Dutch mannerists and 20th-century American abstract expressionists. They became major benefactors of the National Gallery of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Jewish Museum, New York.

Kainen retired from full-time work at the Smithsonian in 1970, but remained available as a special consultant for the next 20 years. During his retirement, he focused exclusively on painting, changing course one final time, and returning to abstraction - albeit in a much softer, peaceful manner than his works from the 1940s and 50s. His renewed efforts proved fruitful, as Kainen enjoyed numerous important exhibitions throughout the duration of his life. The most significant of which being a 1993 retrospective held at the National Museum of American Art, which included 100 major paintings over the span of nearly 60 years.

Kainen’s work is held in many public and private collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Yale University Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Estimated to have completed approximately 1,000 paintings during his life, Jacob Kainen continued to paint until he passed away in 2001 at the age of 91.

Sources: The Jacob Kainen Art Trust and HEMPHILL, Washington, D.C.

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