American Silvered Low Table by Max Kuehne

A rare early coffee type low table by Max Kuehne, American, circa 1930, in silver leaf with unusual incised decoration, signed ‘Max Kuehne’.

Provenance: Estate of the American artist Emma Fordyce Macrae, thence by descent; see image of a work by the artist ‘The Lily’ including this table.

Max Kuehne (1880 - 1968) was a man of many interests and many talents. Born in Halle, Germany, he came to this country with his family in the 1890s. As a young man, he found work as an assistant in a dental laboratory, as a patent law clerk and as a printer's apprentice. In 1907, Kuehne began his formal art training, studying under William Merritt Chase and Kenneth Hayes Miller at the New York School of Art. The following year, he enrolled in the National Academy of Design.

Kuehne made his first visit to Cape Ann in 1912, painting around Gloucester's busy harbour front area. Works such as ‘Gloucester Harbor’, painted during that first visit to this area, show Kuehne's keen interest in capturing spontaneous scenes of contemporary life in a style that is perhaps best described as a combination of Impressionism and Realism. In 1925, after travelling through Europe and exhibiting his works at galleries in New York, Paris and London, Kuehne took up summer residence in Rockport. He would return there every summer thereafter.

Although he is known primarily as a painter, over the years, Max Kuehne had a successful career as a wood carver, making picture frames, furniture, screens and sculptures. During the 1930s, he also created a series of etchings, learning the art from fellow Rockport artists Bill McNulty and Gifford and Reynolds Beal.

Works by Kuehne can be found in important institutions such as the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Whitney Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Reference: Cape Ann Museum https://old.capeannmuseum.org

Max Kuehne and Emma Fordyce Macrae were fellow artists who became friends, both living in New York. Kuehne supplied frames, similar in type to this table, for Macrae’s works.

National and International shipping can be arranged on request at competitive rates.