{{short description|Austrian-born Australian artist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2015}} {{Use Australian English|date=June 2015}} {{More citations needed|date=January 2025}} {{Infobox artist | name = Louis Kahan | honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=AUS|size=100%|AO}} | image = | caption = | birth_name = Ludwig Kahan | birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1905|5|25}} | birth_place = Vienna, Austria-Hungary | spouse = | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|2002|7|16|1905|5|25}} | death_place = Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | field = Portraits | training = | movement = | works = | patrons = | influenced by = | influenced = | awards = Archibald Prize 1962 }}
'''Louis Kahan''' AO (25 May 1905{{spaced ndash}}16 July 2002) was an Austrian-born Australian artist whose long career included fashion design, illustration for magazines and journals, painting, printmaking and drawing. He is represented in most major collections in Australia as well as in Europe and USA. He won the Archibald Prize in 1962 with a portrait of Patrick White.
==Biography== Louis Kahan was born in Vienna on 25 May 1905 to Russian Jewish parents, Wolf and Dina (nee Kutcherska), who were from the Ukraine and had fled Pogroms in the Russian Empire.<ref>[https://collection.heide.com.au/persons/87 Heide Museum of Modern Art]</ref><ref>[https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/3677/?from=2 NGV]</ref><ref name=Portrait>[https://www.portrait.gov.au/people/louis-kahan-1905 Louis Kahan AO] National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved on 5 May 2026.</ref>He initially trained as a tailor with his father. However, he was particularly drawn to art and as a young man sketched his father's clients, who included famous actors and musicians of the day. In 1925 he travelled from Vienna to Paris where he worked with renowned couturier Paul Poiret, first as a tailor and then designer. Through Poiret he met many artists, including Henri Matisse, Raoul Dufy and Maurice de Vlaminck. He designed costumes for Josephine Baker, Colette and the ''Folies Bergère''. He immersed himself in the bohemian life of the city and began life drawing in Montparnasse. At this time he also produced freelance illustrations for newspapers and magazines.
He studied printmaking at Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris and Hornsey College of Art in London.<ref name=Susie>Ashkenazi, Susie (14 September 1990). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/261341298?searchTerm=Louis%20Kahan%20Israel Kahan uses gift of clarity] ''The Australian Jewish News''. Retrieved on 6 May 2026.</ref>
He enlisted in the French Foreign Legion in 1939 and was sent to Algeria, North Africa as a war artist, although he had never received any formal art training. He had an exhibition at Oran in 1942. He was a voluntary artist for the Red Cross between 1943 and 1945. During this time, photography of soldiers was not permitted. Louis made over 2,000 drawings of wounded soldiers being cared for in the hospital at Oran and these were v-mailed (an early form of microfilm) to the families of soldiers. When he found that the originals were being destroyed after transmission Kahan began to save them and over 300 were later given by him to the Red Cross Museum in Washington, USA.
He returned to Paris after the war, and was employed by ''Le Figaro'' to sketch the court scenes of the war trials.
After travelling across the United States he moved to the Perth suburb of Dianella in Western Australia to join his family. His parents and sister had fled the Holocaust in Europe in 1939 and settled in Australia shortly before the Second World War. In Perth he had his first solo exhibition and began to be recognised by the art world, with work purchased by the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
He moved to Melbourne in 1950 where his talent for portraiture was recognised by Melbourne Herald art critic, Alan McCulloch, who introduced him to Clem Christesen, editor of ''Meanjin''. He made many portraits of Australian and other celebrities, including Geoffrey Blainey, Judy Cassab, Manning Clark, Arthur Boyd, Dame Joan Sutherland, Yehudi Menuhin and Luciano Pavarotti. Many of the original drawings for ''Meanjin'' are now in the Baillieu Collection of Melbourne University.
After living in London for some time he returned to Australia in 1959 and then to Melbourne in 1960. Here he collaborated with producer Stephen Haag, designing sets and costumes for opera and theatre. The Victorian Art Centre, Melbourne, has a large collection of his portraits of musicians, and set and costume designs.
In his paintings, prints<ref>''Mono Uno'' Thomas A. Middlemost Charles Sturt University 2009 {{ISBN|978-1-86467-212-1}}</ref> and drawings Louis Kahan explored many interests and themes, including dreams, death, and his own life. Childhood games, portraits and nudes were ongoing subjects. Symbolism particularly characterises his later works. Later, dreamlike prints and paintings often show Kahan's tools of the trade: palette, brushes, tailor's scissors and tape. These represent a kind of metaphorical self-portrait and life history.<ref>interviews with his widow, Lily Kahan</ref>
In 1970, the Victorian Friends of the Hebrew University organised his exhibition ''Travel Impressions''. It featured his landscapes of Hydra and Israel.<ref>Guberek, Peter (20 February 1970). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/262483928?searchTerm=Louis%20Kahan%20Israel Kahan Works] ''The Australian Jewish News''. Retrieved on 6 May 2026.</ref>
In 1981, the exhibition hall of the Sydney Opera House hosted his exhibition, ''Great Music Makers''. The exhibition was initiated and arranged by Sydney Conservatorium of Music.<ref name=Bandman/> It includes drawings of musicians such as Larry Adler, Claudio Arrau, Jacqueline du Pré, Jascha Heifetz, Witold Małcużyński, Zubin Mehta, Eugene Ormandy, Itzhak Perlman, Arthur Rubinstein, Henryk Szeryng, Isaac Stern and Zvi Zeitlin.<ref name=Bandman>Bandman, Ken (20 March 1981). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/262547419?searchTerm=Louis%20Kahan Louis Kahan's Music Makers] ''The Australian Jewish News''. Retrieved on 6 May 2026.</ref> The exhibition was staged again in 1994 at the Westpac Gallery of the Victorian Arts Centre.<ref>(15 July 1994). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/261920682?searchTerm=Louis%20Kahan Louis Kahan exhibition opens] ''The Australian Jewish News''. Retrieved on 6 May 2026/</ref>
In 1990, Niagara Galleries staged his exhibition, ''Survey Exhibition 1947-1990''.<ref name=Susie/>
In 1991, the Art Gallery of Western Australia staged a retrospective of his drawings and watercolours.<ref name=Majzner>Victor Majzner and Geoff La Gerche (23 August 2002). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/262948831?searchTerm=Louis%20Kahan Louis Kahan] ''The Australian Jewish News''. Retrieved on 6 May 2026.</ref>
In 1993, Kahan was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for service to the arts.<ref>[https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/870018 It's an Honour]</ref><ref name=Majzner/>
In 1997, the Jewish Museum of Australia staged an exhibition, ''Louis Kahan - a Portrait'', of Kahan's work.<ref name=Majzner/>
==Personal life== On a return trip to Perth in 1953 he met and married Lily Isaac. They had two daughters together, who both became artists.<ref name=Klepac>Klepac, Lou (15 August 2002). [https://www.smh.com.au/national/guy-from-paris-bloomed-in-perth-20020815-gdfjjn.html Guy from Paris bloomed in Perth] ''The Sydney Morning Herald''. Retrieved on 5 May 2026.</ref><ref>Brygel, Jackie (13 June 1997). [https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/261957147/29191448 Kahan's Lifetime of Art] ''The Australian Jewish News''. Retrieved on 6 May 2026.</ref>
He and his family settled permanently in Kew in Melbourne in 1960.<ref>[https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1357483/costume-design-by-louis-kahan-costume-design-kahan-louis/ Costume design by Louis Kahan (1905-2002) for the Duke of Buckingham in Elizabeth and Essex 1953] V&A. Retrieved on 5 May 2026.</ref> ===Death=== He died in Melbourne in 2002, aged 97.<ref name=Klepac/>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://chrysalis.com.au/Artist-Louis-Kahan-10.htm Artwork and Biography] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20050909235807/http://www.jewishmuseum.com.au/shop/artists/kahan.htm Jewish museum] *[http://louiskahan.com The official Louis Kahan website] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20070710233640/http://www.australianart.com.au/artists.php?ID=34 Louis Kahan at Australian Art] *[http://www.daao.org.au/bio/event/intelligentsia-louis-kahans-portraits-of-writers/ Design and Art Australia Online (DAAO)] *[https://www.designcollection.rmit.edu.au/?p=rmit-archives-highlights#browse=enarratives.67 Louis Kahan Collection at RMIT Design Archives]
{{s-start}} {{s-ach|aw}} {{s-bef|before=William Edwin Pidgeon}} {{s-ttl|title=Archibald Prize|years=1962<br/>for ''Patrick White''}} {{s-aft|after=J. Carrington Smith}} {{s-end}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kahan, Louis}} Category:1905 births Category:2002 deaths Category:20th-century Australian male artists Category:Archibald Prize winners Category:Jewish Australian painters Category:Australian people of Austrian-Jewish descent Category:Australian people of Russian-Jewish descent Category:Officers of the Order of Australia Category:Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion Category:Alumni of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière Category:Australian printmakers Category:Austrian emigrants to Australia Category:Austrian Jews Category:20th-century Austrian printmakers Category:20th-century Austrian male artists Category:Meanjin people Category:Australian male painters Category:20th-century Australian painters Category:Austrian modern painters Category:20th-century Australian printmakers