Misch Kohn, Medea, 1950, wood engraving
on China/India paper 28 x 33 in., de Saisset Museum permanent collection,
gift of College of Arts and Sciences, Santa Clara University, 2003.1
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Misch Kohn
Medea, 1950
This startlingly evocative print reveals a technical virtuosity that has rightly earned Kohn the status of one of America’s most respected printmakers. Adapting the ancient Greek myth of Medea to contemporary time, the imagery aptly characterizes the angst and violence felt in a world overshadowed by the Cold War. Creating visual tension in the interplay of negative and positive space as well as through exacting obliques and verticals, this print powerfully resonates with Kohn’s humanistic concerns about the state of humankind within an often terrifying world.
Kohn was the first to move the print away from a private hand-held experience to a public scale, sizing his works so that they would have strong visual impact when viewed on a wall. Doing so, he irrevocably changed how we think about prints, much as Edward Weston irrevocably changed our perception of what a photograph could be.
Working from a drawing that served as framework rather than as blueprint, Kohn continued to revise the final form of the engraving as he cut away parts of the African boxwood block.
Printing the thin, absorbent China/India paper under extraordinary pressure in a lithograph press, his sharp forms actually embossed the paper, effectively contrasting the textural complexities of the image with the simple boldness of the black masses. The drama and monumental power of prints such as these are impressive testaments to Kohn’s ability to balance figurative narrative with formalist effect; realistic representational components seamlessly shift into alternatively intricate or bold areas of pattern and texture, emphasizing mass as they structurally integrate the figure of Medea into her dynamic environment.
This outstanding example of Kohn’s work in printmaking joins two other pieces by the artist in the de Saisset Museum’s permanent collection, Untitled (Giant), 1961, and Excavation, 1981. These strong pieces provide a wonderful record of Kohn’s life and work. The artist recently died at his home in Castro Valley, California at the age of 86.
- Jo Farb Hernandez, Director, Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery, School of Art and Design, San Jose State University, curator of the traveling exhibition Misch Kohn: Beyond the Tradition, and author of the monograph/exhibition catalogue raisonné of the same title