Karl Knaths

Karl Knaths
Karl Knaths, 1930
Born	Otto Karl Knaths (1891-10-21)October 21, 1891 Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Died	March 9, 1971(1971-03-09) (aged 79) Provincetown, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Other names	Otto Knaths, Otto Karl Knaths, Otto George Knaths, Karl O. Knaths, Otto K. Knaths
Education	School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Known for	Modern art
Movement	Cubism, Abstract art
Spouse(s)	Helen Lena Weinrich Knaths (1876-1978)
Patron(s)	Duncan Phillips

Karl Knaths (October 21, 1891 – March 9, 1971) was an American artist whose personal approach to the Cubist aesthetic led him to create paintings which, while abstract, contained readily identifiable subjects. In addition to the Cubist painters, his work shows influence by Paul Cézanne, Wassily Kandinsky, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Paul Klee, Stuart Davis, and Agnes Weinrich. It is nonetheless, in use of heavy line, rendering of depth, disciplined treatment of color, and architecture of planes, distinctly his own.

Karl Knaths was born October 21, 1891, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His parents were Otto Julius Knaths and Maria Theresa Knaths. Shortly after Knaths's birth the family moved to Portage, Wisconsin where he spent his childhood years. When he was in his late teens his father died and he became apprenticed to his mother's brother, George Dietrich, in the baking trade. Although he had begun making sketches, he had no art instruction and little time for self-instruction. While attending Portage High School he met the local author, Zona Gale. She encouraged his interest and, upon his graduation in 1910, both convinced his uncle to release him from apprenticeship and introduced him to Dudley Crafts Watson of the Milwaukee Art Institute. During the next year he studied art at the Institute. He obtained the job by which he supported himself when Gale introduced him to Laura Sherry, the director of the Wisconsin Players. Despite his youth and inexperience, Sherry took him on as caretaker of the playhouse and one of its set designers. In 1911, on advice from Gale and Craft, Knaths began studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. There, he mainly supported himself as janitor's assistant but when the 1913 Armory Show came to town he landed a job at the show as one of the guards. The show was his first substantial exposure to European modernism and he later reported that the experience both confused and awed him. Uncomfortable with most of the work on display, he found much to like in the works of Cézanne, particularly the blocks of muted color out of which he built his compositions.