Bill Kohn may be best known in our own neighborhood as the designer of the Art Fair/House Tour banner. He and his wife Pat are active in the Skinker-DeBaliviere area through their work with the Neighborhood School, The Paper, and other community activities. A renowned jogger, Bill also claims fame as the father of Joshua and Sophie.
But Bill also has a national reputation as a painter and in recent weeks he has added another achievement to his already long list of artistic successes. He has been spotlighted in the daily press and on local TV as the winner of a competition to design and paint a mural in the Auto Club Membership Services Building at 3917 Lindell Boulevard. A total of 31 entries were received from professional artists throughout Missouri and Illinois.
The mural is painted on a curved surface of 55 feet by 10 feet. In keeping with the terms of the competition, the mural depicts the advancement of the motor car from its origin to today and its influence upon mankind. It is done in a style that is a combination of realism and abstractions in exploding colors.
William Kohn serves as an associate professor in the School of Fine Arts at Washington University. He holds two degrees – a bachelor of Fine Arts from Washington U. and a Master of Arts from Mills College in Oakland, California.
Upon his graduation from Washington University in 1953, Bill was awarded the John T. Milliken Foreign Travel Scholarship. He used it to study print making in Paris. In 1965 Bill went to India to paint under a Fulbright Grant. Last year he was one of six Missouri artists given individual grants by the Missouri Arts Council. He has also studied at the National University in Mexico: the Salzbury Lithography Studio, Austria; and the Bellas Aries, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
He has had a total of eleven one-man shows and his work has been included in many exhibitions and permanent collections. In St. Louis, Bill’s paintings are on display at Webster College, the University of Missouri, the General American Life Insurance building at 8th and Market, and the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council offices at 6010 Kingsbury.
The Kohns are currently spending a year in Guadalajara, Mexico. Plans are to return to St. Louis with a bounty of new work to be displayed in one-man shows at the Terry Moore Gallery and the Jan Cicere Gallery in Chicago in 1980.
The Paper joins the rest of the neighborhood in wishing Bill, Pat, Joshua and Sophie good luck and we look forward to their return next year.
Original photograph caption
Bill Kohn with his mural design. Photo by Peter Zimmerman. The Paper, September 1978, page 1.
Originally published in The Paper, September 1978.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: The printed “Salzbury,” “Bellas Aries” and “Jan Cicere” are retained; future exhibitions are plans, not verified outcomes.
Original source: SD_Times1978_09.pdf, printed page(s) 1; PDF page(s) 1.
