Misch Kohn was born in Kokomo, Indiana. After his formal studies, he lived in Mexico and worked with muralists Jose Clemente Orozco and Leopoldo Mendez. He also traveled in France. Kohn taught at the Illinois Institute of Technology from 1953 to 1965, and at California State University at Hayward from 1972 to 1980. The artist's work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others.
Experimenting with printmaking methods intrigued Kohn even as a student at the John Herron Art Institute in Chicago. Some of his works, generally using mythological or biblical figures treated in an abstract, linear fashion, employ as many as three techniques, such as woodcut, engraving, and aquatint. He also occasionally incorporates other materials--letters, labels, and prints--into his works.
[This is an excerpt from the interactive companion program to the videodisc American Art from the National Gallery of Art. Produced by the Department of Education Resources, this teaching resource is one of the Gallery's free-loan educational programs.]
