WILL BARNET Study for "Homage to Léger with K. K. (Portrait of Katharine Kuh)."
Charcoal on vellum, 1982. 1015x969 mm; 40x38 1/8 inches. Signed and dated in charcoal, lower right recto.
Provenance: Babcock Galleries, New York, with the label; estate of the artist.
Exhibited: "Will Barnet: Drawings," Babcock Galleries, New York, February 20-April 27, 2007, number 12; "Will Barnet in Provincetown," Provincetown Art Association and Museum, August 19-October 23, 2011, with the label; "The Art of Will Barnet," Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Maine, June 21-August 12, 2012, with the label.
The current work on vellum is a study for the 1982 oil on canvas Homage to Léger with K. K., in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Kuh (1904-1994) was an art historian, gallerist, and curator. Kuh's eponymous gallery became the epicenter of avant-garde art in Chicago. She operated her gallery from 1935 to 1943, when she was hired as a curator at the Art Institute of Chicago. As curator, Kuh was responsible for several landmark exhibitions, including Mark Rothko's first showing at a museum and "American Artists Paint the City," organized for the 1956 Venice Biennale. After leaving her position at the Art Institute in 1959, she became an art critic and author.
