Jacob Kainen

Jacob Kainen
Jacob Kainen (1909–2001) was an American artist, curator, and writer known for his contributions to both modern art and art history. He was a curator at the Smithsonian Institution and authored several works on American printmaking and modernism, including "John Baptist Jackson: 18th Century Master of the Color Woodcut" and "The Etchings of Edward Hopper." Kainen's own artistic style blended abstract expressionism with social realism, and he was deeply influenced by both European and American modernist traditions. As a writer, he played a crucial role in documenting and promoting lesser-known printmakers and the evolution of American art.

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John Baptist Jackson 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut

John Baptist Jackson 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut

by: Jacob Kainen
PREFACE John Baptist Jackson has received little recognition as an artist. This is not surprising if we remember that originality in a woodcutter was not considered a virtue until quite recently. We can now see that he was more important than earlier critics had realized. He was the most adventurous and ambitious of earlier woodcutters and a trailblazer in turning his art resolutely in the direction of... more...
Why Bewick Succeeded A Note in the History of Wood Engraving

Why Bewick Succeeded A Note in the History of Wood Engraving

by: Jacob Kainen
The Contemporary View of Bewick After 1790, when his A general history of quadrupeds appeared with its vivid animals and its humorous and mordant tailpiece vignettes, he was hailed in terms that have hardly been matched for adulation. Certainly no mere book illustrator ever received equal acclaim. He was pronounced a great artist, a great man, an outstanding moralist and reformer, and the master of a... more...