Max Arthur Cohn Biographical Information

Born:
1903, England. Emigrated to US 1905.  Naturalized citizen.

Died:
1998, New York City

Art Education:
Art Students League, New York: 1925-1927; student of John Sloan
Académie Colarossi, Paris, France: 1927

Participation:
PWAP, 1934
WPA Easel Project, 1936-1939

Max Arthur Cohn was one of the artists selected for the PWAP (Public Works of Art Project) and the WPA (Works Progress Administration).  During the Great Depression, as part of the New Deal, artists artists like Max Arthur Cohn created works of art that were acquired by the Federal Government in exchange for a small stipend.  

Max Arthur Cohn created the following pieces that were acquired by the US Federal Government during the Great Depression.  The location for the majority of the works listed below are unknown.

  • PWAP 1934 Coal Tower (Oil) 24 x 30: (Smithsonian American Art Museum; transferred from Dept. of Labor)

  • PWAP 1934 Bleecker St. (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1936 Gowanis Canal (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1936 Interboro Power Plant (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1936 Coenties Slip (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1936 Patzcuaro (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1936 Landscape Gardening (Oil) 24 x 30 (Homer Folks Hospital?)

  • WPA 1936 Stuyvesant Park (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1936 Noank Water Front (Oil) 20 x 24

  • WPA 1936 Docks Lower New York (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1937 Court Scene (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1937 Brooklyn Bridge (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1937 Weehawken (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1937 Landscape New Jersey (Oil) 20 x 24

  • WPA 1937 New Jersey Landscape (Oil) 20 x 24

  • WPA 1937 Landscape with Horse (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1937 Baling Hay 24 x 30 (Oil)

  • WPA 1938 Still Life (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1938 Gravel Hill (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1938 Repairing Telephone Line (Oil) 20 x 24

  • WPA 1938 Farm in Valley (Oil) 24 x 36

  • WPA 1938 Autumn Landscape (Oil) 24 x 30

  • WPA 1939 Hay Field (Oil) 30 x 36

  • WPA 1939 Dredges East River (Oil) 24 x 36

  • WPA 1939 Harlem River (Watecolor)

Exhibitions:
One Man Shows:

  • N.Y. Civic Club, 1929

  • New School for Social Research, 1932

  • ACA Gallery, 1934

  • Delphic Studios, 1936

  • Couturier Galleries, Stamford, CT, 1963

  • Lucinda Galleries, NJ 1968

  • University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Art History Gallery, 1989

Publications:
Co-author with J. I. Biegeleisen: Silk Screen Stencilling as a Fine Art, New York, McGraw Hill, 1942, corrected and reprinted as Silk Screen Techniques, New York, Dover Press, 1956.

Group Shows:

  • New School for Social Research 1937, 1957

  • Watercolor Biennial, Brooklyn Museum 1939

  • Prints for Children, MOMA 1936 (won honorable mention)

  • Art Students League, 1936, 1975

  • National Serigraph Society, 1941, 1942, 1945

  • N.Y. WPA Artists Ass'n shows 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984

  • “The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock,” The British Museum, 2008, and in catalogue of the same name by Stephen Coppel (2008) pp. 27-28, Fig. 8; 178-179

  • “1934: A New Deal for Artists,” Smithsonian American Art Museum, Feb. 27, 2009-Jan. 3, 2010; catalogue of same name by Roger Kennedy and Ann Wagner (2009).


Collections:

  • Metropolitan Museum of Art

  • Whitney Museum of American Art

  • Museum of Modern Art

  • Philadelphia Museum of Art

  • Milwaukee Art Museum

  • William Nelson Rockhill Gallery, Kansas City

  • University of Wisconsin-Madison

  • University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

  • University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

  • Howard University

  • Albany Museum

  • Dallas Museum

  • Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

  • Denver Museum

  • New York Public Library

  • Boston Public Library

  • British Museum, London

  • Tel Aviv Museum

  • The Smithsonian American Art Museum

  • Museum of the City of New York

Memberships:
Art Students League, Life Member
National Serigraph Society, Founding Member
Delaware Valley Artists Association, Founding Member
N.Y. WPA Artists Association, Executive Board Member

Travel:
Cohn lived and painted in New York City from at least 1925 until his death in 1998 but he and his wife took frequent trips within the U.S. as well as to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. While traveling he produced many water colors of scenes and monuments that he used as reference for larger oil paintings when back in his studio. 

Europe: France, 1927, 1931, 1964; Greece, 1964, 1968; Italy, 1965, 1968; Spain, 1964, 1968; England, 1973; Amsterdam, 1973 

Middle East and N. Africa: Turkey, 1964; Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, 1966; Cyprus, 1968; Israel, 1968; Iran, 1973; Egypt 1979

New England: Monhegan, Maine, 1972; Martha’s Vineyard, 1970, 1980, 1989; Gloucester, MA, 1930, 1973, 1975-76, 1978-79, 1981, 1983; Wellfleet, MA 1948; Provincetown, 1951; Nantucket, 1969; Block Island, 1974-78, 1984

Other U.S.: New Jersey/Hunterdon County (owned a summer house there): Most summers from 1937 to 1962; Sarasota, FL, 1952; New Mexico and Arizona, 1971

Mexico: 1934-35, 1970

Caribbean: Nassau, Bahamas, 1953; Haiti, 1958; Barbados, Guadeloupe, Curacao 1977