| Misch Kohn | ||
| Birth Date: March 26, 1916 |
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| Death Date: February 12, 2003 Artist Gallery |
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| Misch Kohn was born in Kokomo, Indiana to Russian emigrant parents and studied printmaking with master printers Max Kahn and Francis Chapin at the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis. Early on with the WPA, he produced color lithographs and also small wood engravings with strong political messages. These pieces are distinguished by the rhythm of negative and positive shapes emphasized by contrasts of black and white coloration.
Kohn explored human responses to political terrors and social challenges and became known as a printmaker. He was convinced that prints could be as elegant as painting and began doing his own work on his own printing presses, and investigating all sorts of techniques.
He spent a year in Mexico, where he assisted Jose Orozco with mural painting, and this experience had a marked influence on his style. In 1939, Kohn moved to Chicago where he began a 22-year career teaching printmaking at the Institute of Design. In 1961, he went to June Wayne's Tamarind Lithographic Workshop in Los Angeles. His work became more abstract and darkened, but later he returned to using more color, causing his prints to look reminiscent of his earlier woodcuts.
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