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John Kane was an immigrant
day-laborer with little education or art training. At the age of
67, Kane submitted his paintings to the 1927 juried Carnegie
International exhibition, where his work was not only accepted but
received a purchase award and recognition from museum directors,
dealers, and the press. Kane's paintings, in a style popularized
by French painter Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) over 100 years ago,
lack three dimensional perspective, tonal variations, naturalism,
and anatomical accuracy, but offer a simple, fresh approach based
upon naive and folk traditions. It is believed that Pickett's
Charge, Battle of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863 was inspired by
Kane's visit to the Gettysburg battlefield and his interest in the
diorama depicting Pickett's heroic but futile effort.
Born in West Calder, Scotland, Kane was raised in the United
States. He worked in Pennsylvania's coal mines, as a gandy-dancer
(tapping down rocks between ties) for the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad, and as a laborer for Westinghouse, Edgar Thomson Steel
Works, and Bessemer blast furnaces in Pittsburgh. In 1927,
although he had no training in art and no previous recognition,
his painting was accepted for the Carnegie International, the
first of seven. He became a member of the Associated Artists of
Pittsburgh in 1928. The Harvard Society of Contemporary Art
exhibited five of his oils in 1929, and from 1930 to 1934 his
paintings were exhibited at the Toledo Museum of Art, the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Museum of Modern Art,
and in the Whitney Museum's first and second Biennials.
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