History Center exhibit explores the life and work of Pittsburgh painter John Kane
John Kane's 1929 painting "Across the Strip" is on display in an exhibit of Kane's work at the Senator John Heinz History Center.
The John Kane painting "Crossing the Junction" is thought to have been completed shortly before the artist's death in 1934.
Louise Lippincott, guest curator of the John Kane exhibit at the Senator John Heinz History Center, discusses the artist's work.
Hands-on activities are part of the exhibit "Pittsburgh's John Kane: The Life and Art of an American Workman" at the Senator John Heinz History Center.
A tin whistle and flute that belonged to artist John Kane are on display in an exhibit of his work at the Senator John Heinz History Center.
The artist John Kane spotlights his Scottish heritage in the painting "Scots Day at Kennywood."
John Kane took an autobiographical turn with his painting "John Kane and His Wife." It was created about 1930.
John Kane, a native of Scotland, carried a tin whistle with him.
PITTSBURGH – The history of Pittsburgh in the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century is filled with tales of immigrant hardship, of punishing labor, of lives riven by violence, dysfunction and tragedy.
In that regard, John Kane might well have been the prototypical Pittsburgher of that era. A Scottish emigre who came to the Pittsburgh region in search of employment, Kane held down jobs as a miner, steel worker and street paver. His left leg was severed in a railroad accident shortly after he turned 30, he drank to excess, lost a young son, attempted suicide, endured a stormy marriage and a stretch in a psychiatric hospital and got in trouble with the law on at least one occasion.
What made Kane stand out from the thousands of other unskilled laborers trying to eke out an existence in Southwestern Pennsylvania was his uncommon skill with a paint brush.
Without any kind of formal training, Kane started sketching in landscapes on the side of railroad cars while drawing a paycheck from the Pressed Steel Car Company in McKees Rocks. His focus was primarily on his surroundings and memories of his early life in Scotland. Before he died, Kane’s work received a measure of recognition. One of his paintings found its way into the Carnegie Museum of Art’s exhibit of contemporary art, the Carnegie International, in 1927, and the tale of the unschooled, aged laborer and his paintings gained traction nationally. Within a couple of years, his primitive and colorful works were the subject of a show in New York.
Nevertheless, when tuberculosis claimed him in 1934 at the age of 73, he left his family a $4,000 bank account and 100 of his paintings.
Many of those paintings are now in the hands of museums and private collectors, and the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh has assembled 37 of them for its exhibit, “Pittsburgh’s John Kane: The Life and Art of an American Workman,” which opened last month and will be there through Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. The paintings come from such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Detroit Institute of Arts. According to Andy Masich, president and CEO of the Heinz History Center, “Pittsburgh’s John Kane: The Life and Art of an American Workman” isn’t just a showcase of the artist’s oeuvre but a window into life in Pittsburgh when it was at its grittiest and, arguably, its most dangerous.
“It’s a special exhibit, not just an art show,” Masich said. “It focuses on the man, his life, his times and his context. … It’s a rare opportunity for Pittsburghers to see their history come alive in art.”
Kane was born in West Calder, Scotland, as John Cain, in 1860. He came to Pittsburgh when he was about 20, originally settling in Braddock. Before too long, he migrated to Connellsville, where he worked in the area’s coke ovens. There were also sojourns to Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee, but Kane eventually came back to – and stayed in – Pittsburgh.
Kane arrived “just as Pittsburgh started to explode as an industrial center,” said Louise Lippincott, a former curator of fine arts at the Carnegie Museum of Art and a guest curator of “Pittsburgh’s John Kane.” “He took whatever was available to him and made it into his art.”
Classified a century after his emergence as an “outsider” or “naive” artist, Kane’s work is often included in the same category as such figures as Grandma Moses and Horace Pippin. His paintings tended to focus on sights and people close to him, whether it was the Strip District, the Monongahela River or a celebration of Scottish heritage at Kennywood.
Kane himself once said, in reference to Pittsburgh, “I helped build its steel mills and homes. I paved its streets, made its steel and painted its houses. It is my city; why shouldn’t I paint it?”
The mileu of Southwestern Pennsylvania during Kane’s time is brought to life in the exhibit through a recreated boxcar, and it also showcases artifacts from the artist’s life, including the tin whistle and flute he carried with him and six photographs he took.
On Wednesday, June 15, Lippincott and Maxwell King, the former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and CEO of the Pittsburgh Foundation, will be at the History Center talking about the exhibit as well as the accompanying book they have written, “American Workman: The Life and Art of John Kane,” which was recently published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. A book signing will follow the discussion.
For additional information, go online to www.heinzhistorycenter.org.