KAUFMANN, John (1937 – )
Biography
John Kaufmann is the doyen of present-day Bermudian impressionist landscape painters. The amazing thing is that by the early 1950s, his impressionist style of painting was already well developed. I say amazing, because at that time he was only a young teenager and although his style has continued to develop, he has been stylistically consistent throughout his artistic career. His development therefore has continued but in micro-increments only. He keeps getting better but that is relative; he was impressively accomplished as a teenager. Best known as an oil painter, his subject matter tends to landscape, especially Bermudian beach scenes and seascapes, although he has occasionally painted still-lifes. In recent years Kaufmann has been influenced by the Paris-based Chinese abstract impressionist Zao Wou-Ki and experimented with a greater degree of abstraction in his landscapes. At the same time has he also explored, with much success, the use of acrylic paints.
When the history of Bermudian art is written, John Kaufmann’s art will be seen as an important step in the maturation of local painting. There is a qualitative leap from the tendency of our artists to make souvenir art to, in Kaufmann’s case, create something not only much finer but which has a completely different purpose. While dealing with the same subject matter, Kaufmann’s art is a more abstract rendering of the Bermuda landscape. Indeed, John Kaufmann sees his paintings as expressions of infinity.
This retrospective represents 60 years of painting Bermuda, ranging from the modest John Smith’s Bay (1947) painted when he was 10 to the epic sweep of Church Bay, Evening (2007). As fellow Bermudian artist Georgine Hill has said of his work: “Through his landscapes he captures the true spirit and character of “old” Bermuda. He interprets the natural beauty of Bermuda that allows us to appreciate our environment even more. Each painting is like a little piece of the island, making you not only want to be there, but making you feel as if you are there for the moment.”
Local critic Andrew Trimingham once wrote that Kaufmann “seems even to improve on nature. Bermuda’s white light, a light that has the effect of bleaching the intensity of our rather gaudy colours, is the bane of most artists. John Kaufmann understands it perfectly. One can even sense the shimmer of fine salt spray that hangs in the atmosphere over our seashores.”
John Hollis Kaufmann was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1937, the son of the late Canadian surgeon Dr. Mark Kaufmann and his Bermudian wife Jeannette Helena Roberts. He began visiting Bermuda regularly from about 1946 and the family eventually moved to the Island in 1949.
After his schooling in Bermuda, where he attended Whitney Institute and Saltus Grammar School, Kaufmann studied art and design at McGill University in Montreal with John Lyman, a painter with broad international experience, including painting trips to Bermuda. Lyman was a student at the Royal College of Art and the Academie Julian, Paris, where he studied with Matisse. After Montreal, Kaufmann continued his art studies at Bard College, New York. There he studied for about two years with Louis Shanker, who was known not only for abstract paintings, but also for woodcuts. In addition to the impact that teachers may have had on his artistic development, there is also the consideration of influences. Kaufmann mentions such artists as Cezanne, Monet, Kokoschka and especially Tom Thompson and the Canadian Group of Seven. Indeed, Kaufmann was at one time a pupil of Arthur Lismer, one of the Seven. While their influence is seen in Kaufmann’s work, he does not copy them; it is more a recognition of a philosophical and artistic kinship and their examples allow us to have the courage to be ourselves, artistically and otherwise.
John Kaufmann primarily paints in his studios, at his home Tranquillity, in Somerset, Bermuda and Hamelin Farm, Colebrook, New Hampshire. He rarely paints on location and where he once used a sketch book, he will now use as many as 20 photographs of an intended subject and then use the computer program Photoshop to break them down into blocks of colour before starting work on the physical painting itself.
He listens constantly to an eclectic range of music while he paints – Shostakovich, the jazz guitarist Ottmar Liebert, Rachmaninov, Simon and Garfunkel. “I paint quite quickly and I dance while I paint,” he says. “There is a rhythm to the brushstrokes. I went through Shostakovich’s entire Preludes and Fugues while preparing for my Elements show in 2000. They are really quite intense and have an enormous depth.”
Kaufmann’s work is equally deep and intense. He has said: “Most of my paintings have a third dimension, a spirituality which in the scenery or object in the picture makes me feel and I try to pass on to the viewer. I attempt to put across the magnificence of creation, the depth of beauty in the world, the ‘something’ beyond what you are looking at.”
And in the same way a composer develops a theme, there are motifs that are recognizable in Kaufmann’s work, such as moving the horizon line to the top eighth of the canvas to maintain an activity level or change of activity at the top of the canvas. He constantly revisits the reflection of cloud in water yet discovers something new each time.
Aside from his contribution as an artist, John Kaufmann has contributed much to the Bermuda cultural community; as president of the Bermuda Society of Arts, as a founding trustee of the Bermuda National Gallery and as the initial designer of the museum’s physical facility at City Hall. He has also been active in local theatre, designing Bermuda’s Festival Theatre at Prospect for the 1959 production of “This Island’s Mine” and the settings for the Pageant “My Heart Stays Here” at Fort St. Catherine. Since 1968, he has been well known as a painting instructor and numerous local landscape painters owe their start to his tutelage, including, Norma Christensen, Shirley James and the late Susan Curtis. He is also a practicing architect, interior designer and the inventor of the SKB roofing system.
In 1999 he was awarded the Queen’s Certificate and Badge of Honour for “both his innovative architecture and his renowned art greatly enriching Bermuda’s cultural landscape.”
A retrospective, certainly one such as this that covers such a long and illustrious career as John Kaufmann’s, is a suitable time for reflection and the thoughts expressed by the artist at his last one-man exhibition in 2000, seem more poignant now than ever.
“When you are young all things are possible: all vistas new and exciting,” he wrote. “Perhaps now I paint their substance – memories, reflections. The merging of land, sky and water is infinite, timeless – essential elements of our soul.”
From “The Essential Elements of John Kaufmann,” by Charles Zuill
