John Kane
| John Kane | |
|---|---|
Book cover of a John Kane biography
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| Born |
August 19, 1860 West Calder, Scotland |
| Died | August 10, 1934 (aged 73) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Naïve art |
John Kane (August 19, 1860 – August 10, 1934) was an American painter celebrated for his skill in Naïve art.
He was the first self-taught American painter in the 20th century to be recognized by a museum. When, on his third attempt, his work was admitted to the 1927 Carnegie International Exhibition, he attracted considerable attention from the media, which initially suspected that his success was a prank. He inadvertently paved the way for other self-taught artists, from Grandma Moses to Outsider Art. Today Kane is remembered for his landscape paintings of industrial Pittsburgh, many of which are held by major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He was born John Cain to Irish parents in West Calder, Scotland on August 19, 1860. His father died when he was age 10, leaving behind a widow and 7 children. His father was employed as a grave digger in West Calder, it is said that he dug a grave on Friday and filled it on Monday. The young Kane quit school to work in the shale mines. He actually worked at Youngs Parrafin works and was so struck with the malleability of the hot parrafin moulds that he made a mask of his own face for his mother Biddy. Naturally he burned his face, but not too seriously. After his mother remarried, he emigrated to the United States at age 19, following his stepfather and older brother Patrick, who had preceded him to America and were working in Braddock, Pennsylvania, just east of Pittsburgh.
He first worked for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at McKeesport as a gandy dancer, one who stamps down stones between the railroad ties. Next he worked a stint in the steel industry at the National Tube Company in McKeesport, but soon left for a job in Connellsville, Pennsylvania at the coke ovens of Henry Clay Frick.
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