Walt Kuhn

The artist

Marie Harriman Gallery, New York (acquired directly from the above)

Private Collection, Long Island, New York

Dr. Demos, Tennessee

Steven Straw, Newburyport, Massachusetts

Phillips, Boston, 3 May 1980, lot 117 (consigned by the above)

Sotheby's New York, 29 May 1986, lot 249

Private Collection, Michigan (acquired from the above)

New York, Grand Central Art Galleries, Inc., 1927

Greensboro, North Carolina, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Spring Loan Show, 1975

"American Selections," American Art Review, vol. III, issue 4, July-August 1976, n.p., illustrated in color

Walt Kuhn is best known for his portraits of circus and vaudeville performers. While the subject of the present work—a clown at a circus party—might initially suggest levity and humor, the scene instead possesses compositional complexity and psychological weight. The tangle of figures is arranged in the dynamic yet harmonious pyramid structure of a Renaissance painting, and amongst the colorfully costumed figures are poignant representations of solitude and desire.