Anne Kahane

Anne Kahane was born in Austria in 1924 and moved to Canada at the age of two. She studied at Cooper Union Art School in New York and the École des Beaux-Arts in Montréal, and has had a distinguished teaching career at both Concordia University and McMaster University in the early 1980s: Kahane lived in Hamilton during this time, returning to Montréal in 1987.

Kahane was notable as one of a few active women sculptors in Canada in the late 1940s and 1950s. By the mid-1950s, she began working in wood—not a material favoured by modernist sculptors of the period, yet producing ambitious, dramatic and vigorous works in a figurative language, and received numerous public commissions. Carving and material were part of the process as she noted in a 1967 interview:

“I must adapt it to work in wood. Wood suits me: I like the challenge of its restrictions [and] I often consider myself as a sort of carpenter who makes sculpture, whose pieces fit together like well-made tables and chairs.”

“Unpolished wood has a quality of breathing and scintillating, of catching every flicker, like a drawing, [and] I wanted to make sculpture with this kind of intimacy.”

The works for the exhibition—from the Museum’s collection—include Kahane’s sculpture, prints and drawing, and as a complement, graphic works by European sculptors such as Henry Moore and Ossip Zadkine, who influenced Kahane during her formative training. Also included will be a dual portrait wood engraving by Kahane’s artist husband Robert Langstadt (1912-1987), on loan from The Robert McLaughlin Gallery collection.

Anne Kahane has exhibited nationally—including two solo exhibitions at McMaster, in 1961 and 1981 — and internationally. Her works are represented in public collections across Canada.

List of Works in Exhibition:

ANNE KAHANE (Canadian b. 1924)

Flying Angel, 1960, Ed. 4/30, woodcut, 60.3 x 45.5 cm, Purchase, 1962
Women, 1958, Ed. 7/15, etching, 24.6 x 19.8 cm, Wentworth House Art Committee Purchase, 1962
Bather, 1962, wood, 111.6 x 21.9 cm, Wentworth House Art Committee Purchase, 1962
Blue Figure, 1976, plywood, acrylic on pine base, 209 x 36.5 x 8 cm, Gift of Nettie Levine, 1989
Tango 2, 1976, pine, 168.5 x 49 x 68.3 cm, George Loranger Bequest, 1994
Untitled, 1984 colour woodcut, 60.5 x 48.3 cm, George Loranger Bequest, 1994
Untitled, n.d., colour woodcut, 67.5 x 53.5 cm, George Loranger Bequest, 1994
Untitled, n.d., ink, 19 x 35.7 cm, George Loranger Bequest, 1994

ROBERT LANGSTADT (Canadian b. Germany 1912-1987)

Self-portrait with Anne Kahane, c. 1962, woodcut, ed. 10/15, 66.2 x 68.9 cm, Gift of Georges Loranger, 1985, Courtesy of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery

MARINO MARINI (Italian 1901-1980)

Man on Horse, n.d., Ed. 41/75, etching , 76 x 56.5 cm, George Loranger Bequest, 1994
Man on Horse, n.d. Ed. 44/60, lithograph, 62.5 x 90 cm, George Loranger Bequest, 1994

HENRY MOORE (English 1898-1986)

Seated Figure, c. 1973-1974, pencil, charcoal, pen, ink , 25.4 x 17.8 cm, Gift of Gordon Eberts, 1991

HILDA IDA MARY WOOLNOUGH (Canadian 1934-2007)

The Splinter, 1963, Ed. 1/10 ochre and blue, woodcut, 29.9 x 23.9 cm, Wentworth House Art Committee Purchase, 1965

OSSIP ZADKINE (Russian, 1890-1967)

Praying Mantis, 1964 , Ed. 78/200, coloured lithograph, 57.2 x 42 cm, Gift of Rabbi and Mrs. Bernard Baskin, 1988
Les Rois Magis / The Magi, 1953, lithograph, edition 8/250 , 56.5 x 38 cm, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Alexander Gordon McKay, 2010
Trio, n.d. , Ed. 50/220, lithograph, 65.8 x 50.6 cm, Gift of Miriam Shiell, 2009