Max Arthur Cohn
Born in 1903 in London, Max Cohn was brought to the United States at the age of two. When he was seventeen, he got his first job in a New York silkscreen studio. In 1922, he began studies at the New York Art Students League under the direction of Boardman Robinson and the following year, he studied under John Sloan, a member of the Ash Can School. Cohn went to Paris in 1927, to attend the Academie Colarossi, where he absorbed the influences of Abstraction and Cubism.
During the Depression, he was engaged in the Easel Project of the WPA, working for $26.00 per week, producing 26 works of art. During this period, he became interested in silk screening, a printing method that had been used for the mass production of lettered signs. Cohn wanted his silkscreen prints to imitate his watercolors.
In 1942 he coauthored the book, “Silk Screen Stenciling as a Fine Art” and in the 1950s, he taught Andy Warhol how to make silkscreen prints.
His prints include, “Harlem River”, “On the Beach” and “Brooklyn Bridge”, among many others. Cohn was an artist for more than 70 years before his death in 1998 at the age of 95.