(1860-1949)
American
Born: Boston, MA, U.S.
Charlotte “Emma” Wharton Kaan (1860-1949) was an American painter associated with the Arts & Crafts Movement. Together with her partner in life and art-making, Annie I. Crawford (1856-1942), she created collaborative paintings and developed an innovative new technique for creating inexpensive reproductions of their work. [1]
The Boston-born daughter of Hungarian and Austrian immigrant, Kaan became a schoolteacher in her twenties and later studied art at several European academies. On one such trip, most likely in 1889, she met fellow artist Crawford, with whom she eventually began a relationship spanning more than four decades. Kaan returned to Boston, where she painted and did illustration work for books. In the late 1890s the duo moved to Buffalo, N.Y., where they remained for the rest of their lives together. They often worked on paintings together and both signed them, an unusual practice for the time.
Crawford and Kaan were also responsible for a technical innovation when, around 1902, they developed a new process of reproducing original drawings so that the finished, hand-colored print resembled a watercolor and was less expensive to purchase.
The two artists were good friends with the Arts & Crafts artist Charles Rohlfs, and he provided them with frames for many of their paintings. In return, they sometimes used him and members of his family as subjects.
Kaan was a teacher and lecturer in addition to her career as an artist. She and Crawford shared studio and teaching space as well as living quarters. They had paintings and prints exhibited at the then-new Albright Art Gallery and included in various private collections throughout the city. Upon their deaths, much of their work was lost and they were buried in separate cities.
For more information on Emma Kaan, see Michael L. James & David F. Martin, "Intimate Spirits: Remembering the Art and Lives of Annie Crawford & Emma Kaan," Western New York Heritage, Fall 2007 (print edition only), and Mark Strong, "Annie Crawford," http://www.meibohmfinearts.com/artists.aspx?ID=52.
[1] Biographical information adapted from Michael L. James and David F. Martin and Mark Strong, references cited above.