Karl Knaths

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(1891, Eau Claire, WI – 1971, Hyannis, MA)

Karl Knaths was an American Cubist who was originally from Eau Claire, but lived most of his life in Provincetown, MA (1919-1971). He was educated at the Art Institute of Chicago for five years, starting in 1912.

Knaths was first introduced to the works of Cezanne and other progressive artists while working as a guard for the 1913 Armory Show in Chicago. In 1919, Knaths moved to New York where he stayed briefly before moving to Provincetown, MA.

One of Knaths first and major patrons was Duncan Phillips of Washington D.C.. Phillips had his first one-person show was held at there in 1929. This led to a career filled with twenty-two solo exhibitions across the nation.

Knaths was also an artist for the Works Progress Administration, painting murals from 1934 to 1935. Between 1938 and 1950, he taught an annual six-week course at the Phillips Collection. He also instructed at Bennington College in Vermont, Black Mountain College in North Carolina (1944), and at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine (1948).

While never a member of the American Abstract Artists group, Knaths was affiliated with and brought much distinction to the group. He is known for his cubist style and had the strongest parallels to the modernist, Cezanne, who also drew from nature and his surroundings. Knaths also found inspiration in American folklore and literature.

Knaths was theoretically inclined and had his own color system. He was strongly influenced by Wassily Kandisky and believed there were correlations between musical intervals and spatial proportions. Knatha also mapped out charts of color and musical ratios used to determine proportions and directional lines in his compositions.

Source: Smithsonian American Art Museum, “Karl Knaths”, https://americanart.si.edu/artist/karl-knaths-2668

Phillips Collection, https://www.phillipscollection.org/research/american_art/bios/knaths-bio.htm

Photo credit: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Knaths